The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.
JAMES MADISONNo nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
More James Madison Quotes
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The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to an uniformity of interests.
JAMES MADISON -
America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity.
JAMES MADISON -
I have no doubt but that the misery of the lower classes will be found to abate whenever the Government assumes a freer aspect and the laws favor a subdivision of Property.
JAMES MADISON -
They throw that light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments on the public liberty.
JAMES MADISON -
All that seems indispensible in stating the account between the dead and the living, is to see that the debts against the latter do not exceed the advances made by the former.
JAMES MADISON -
The internal effects of a mutable policy poisons the blessings of liberty itself.
JAMES MADISON -
The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.
JAMES MADISON -
A sincere and steadfast co-operation in promoting such a reconstruction of our political system as would provide for the permanent liberty and happiness of the United States.
JAMES MADISON -
In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.
JAMES MADISON -
And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.
JAMES MADISON -
To the press alone, chequered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.
JAMES MADISON -
No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
JAMES MADISON -
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.
JAMES MADISON -
If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
JAMES MADISON -
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.
JAMES MADISON -
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.
JAMES MADISON -
Despotism can only exist in darkness, and there are too many lights now in the political firmament to permit it to remain anywhere, as it has heretofore done, almost everywhere.
JAMES MADISON -
A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or perhaps both.
JAMES MADISON -
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.
JAMES MADISON -
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.
JAMES MADISON -
The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.
JAMES MADISON -
Each generation should be made to bear the burden of its own wars, instead of carrying them on, at the expense of other generations.
JAMES MADISON -
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.
JAMES MADISON -
All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.
JAMES MADISON -
Every nation whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of its wiser neighbors.
JAMES MADISON -
As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.
JAMES MADISON