In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
JAMES MADISONThe internal effects of a mutable policy poisons the blessings of liberty itself.
More James Madison Quotes
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Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.
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The personal right to acquire property, which is a natural right, gives to property, when acquired, a right to protection, as a social right.
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All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.
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Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.
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Whenever a youth is ascertained to possess talents meriting an education which his parents cannot afford, he should be carried forward at the public expense.
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It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.
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A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.
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Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.
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The internal effects of a mutable policy poisons the blessings of liberty itself.
JAMES MADISON -
No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
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Philosophy is common sense with big words.
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That part of America which had encouraged them most had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts.
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I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishment.
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Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.
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What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support?
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The capacity of the female mind for studies of the highest order cannot be doubted, having been sufficiently illustrated by its works of genius, of erudition, and of science.
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There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied, and which, therefore, more needs elucidation, than the current one, that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.
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What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?
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Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.
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Any reading not of a vicious species must be a good substitute for the amusements too apt to fill up the leisure of the labouring classes.
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War contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason.
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The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.
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The number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state.
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If we are to take for the criterion of truth the majority of suffrages, they ought to be gotten from those philosophic and patriotic citizens who cultivate their reason.
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The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger; those of the state governments, in times of peace and security.
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Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
JAMES MADISON