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 MADISONAmericans have the right and advantage of being armed – unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
More James Madison Quotes
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A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.
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As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.
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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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I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishment.
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In no instance have… the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.
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Let me recommend the best medicine in the world: a long journey, at a mild season, through a pleasant country, in easy stages.
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A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.
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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.
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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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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.
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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 protection of these faculties is the first object of government.
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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.
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Every nation whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of its wiser neighbors.
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Learned Institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people.
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Whenever a youth is ascertained to possess talents meriting an education which his parents cannot afford, he should be carried forward at the public expense.
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No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
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The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.
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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.
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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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The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.
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They throw that light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments on the public liberty.
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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.
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To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.
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What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?
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A sincere and steadfast co-operation in promoting such a reconstruction of our political system as would provide for the permanent liberty and happiness of the United States.
JAMES MADISON