James Madison Quotes

Author Image

James Madison

Profession : President

Birth : March 16, 1751

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

James Madison

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.

James Madison

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

James Madison

Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

James Madison

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.

James Madison

What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?

James Madison

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

James Madison

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

James Madison

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.

James Madison

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

James Madison

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.

James Madison

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

James Madison

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.

James Madison

Commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive, and impolitic.

James Madison

In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.

James Madison

Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.

James Madison

Each generation should be made to bear the burden of its own wars, instead of carrying them on, at the expense of other generations.

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

By rendering the labor of one, the property of the other, they cherish pride, luxury, and vanity on one side; on the other, vice and servility, or hatred and revolt.

James Madison

I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishment.

James Madison