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 MADISONWherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.
More James Madison Quotes
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A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.
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Union of religious sentiments begets a surprising confidence.
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 -
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.
JAMES MADISON -
America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity.
JAMES MADISON -
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?
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 -
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.
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 -
The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.
JAMES MADISON -
If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
JAMES MADISON -
In no instance have… the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.
JAMES MADISON -
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 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 -
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?
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 -
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
JAMES MADISON -
Learned Institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people.
JAMES MADISON -
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.
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 -
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 -
The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.
JAMES MADISON -
The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.
JAMES MADISON -
The class of citizens who provide at once their own food and their own raiment, may be viewed as the most truly independent and happy.
JAMES MADISON -
Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.
JAMES MADISON -
The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.
JAMES MADISON