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 MADISONDespotism 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.
More James Madison Quotes
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A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.
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The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.
JAMES MADISON -
In no instance have… the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.
JAMES MADISON -
To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.
JAMES MADISON -
No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
JAMES MADISON -
Let me recommend the best medicine in the world: a long journey, at a mild season, through a pleasant country, in easy stages.
JAMES MADISON -
Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.
JAMES MADISON -
It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.
JAMES MADISON -
Philosophy is common sense with big words.
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 -
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 -
The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
JAMES MADISON -
In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.
JAMES MADISON -
War contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason.
JAMES MADISON -
The happy Union of these States is a wonder; their Constitution a miracle; their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world.
JAMES MADISON






