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 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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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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The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.
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We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.
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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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Each generation should be made to bear the burden of its own wars, instead of carrying them on, at the expense of other generations.
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What prudent merchant will hazard his fortunes in any new branch of commerce when he knows not that his plans may be rendered unlawful before they can be executed?
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The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.
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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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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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If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
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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.
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In no instance have… the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.
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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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War contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason.
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A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.
JAMES MADISON