Quotes By James Madison

A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.

Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.

In no instance have... the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.

The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of money.

Commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive, and impolitic.

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.

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.

The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.

War contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason.

Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.

As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.

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.

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.

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.

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.

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.

All that seems indispensible in stating the account between the dead and the living, is to see that the debts against the latter do not exceed the advances made by the former.

There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied, and which, therefore, more needs elucidation, than the current one, that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.

A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.

America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity. That part of America which had encouraged them most had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts.

All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.

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?

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.

Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.

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. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.

The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.

Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.