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 MADISONA popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or perhaps both.
More James Madison Quotes
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Philosophy is common sense with big words.
JAMES MADISON -
In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
JAMES MADISON -
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.
JAMES MADISON -
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.
JAMES MADISON -
Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
JAMES MADISON -
The internal effects of a mutable policy poisons the blessings of liberty itself.
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 -
As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.
JAMES MADISON -
That part of America which had encouraged them most had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts.
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 -
Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.
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 -
Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.
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 -
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