War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.
JAMES MADISONKnowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
More James Madison Quotes
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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.
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 -
All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.
JAMES MADISON -
In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.
JAMES MADISON -
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
JAMES MADISON -
Philosophy is common sense with big words.
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 -
Learned Institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people.
JAMES MADISON -
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 -
I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishment.
JAMES MADISON -
I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution.
JAMES MADISON -
Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.
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 -
The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.
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