Famous Quotes

Quotes by James Madison

• The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.
• 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.
• The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of money.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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 essence of Government is power and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.
• The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.
• The happy Union of these States is a wonder their Constitution a miracle their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world.
• The loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or imagined, from abroad.
• The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.
• The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.
• The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.
• The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.
• To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.
• 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.