James Madison Quotes

A bad cause seldom fails to betray itself.

I hope this will find you ... enjoying the commencement of a new year with every prospect that can make it a happy one.

[Christianity] existed and flourishes, not only without the support of human laws, but in spite of every opposition from them.

Conscience is the most sacred of all property.

The security intended to the general liberty consists in the frequent election and in the rotation of the members of Congress.

[I]t is more convenient to prevent the passage of a law, than to declare it void after it has passed.

If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

[I]t is the reason alone, of the public, that ought to control and regulate the government.

A President is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution.

We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.

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

A standing army is one of the greatest mischief that can possibly happen.

Government destitute of energy, will ever produce anarchy.

But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflection on human nature?

Having outlived so many of my contemporaries, I ought not to forget that I may be thought to have outlived myself.

The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state shall not be questioned.

The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.

The Presidency alone unites the conjectures of the public.

Resistance to tyranny is service to God.

It is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity toward each other.

The happy Union of these States is a wonder; their Constitution a miracle; their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world.

The problem to be solved is, not what form of government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect.

The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man.

As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

What a perversion of the normal order of things! ... to make power the primary and central object of the social system, and Liberty but its satellite.

War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement

An oath-the strongest of religious ties.

The proposed Constitution is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal constitution; but a composition of both.

Who are to be the objects of popular choice? Every citizen whose merit may recommend him to the esteem and confidence of his country.

The President is responsible to the public for the conduct of the person he has nominated and appointed.

Procrastination in the beginning and precipitation towards the conclusion is the characteristic of such bodies.

A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.

WHEN THE BALL IS COMING AT 100 MPH FROM PITCHER THERES NOTHING SOFT ABOUT THAT

I flatter myself [we] have in this country extinguished forever the ambitious hope of making laws for the human mind.

If man is not fit to govern himself, how can he be fit to govern someone else?

[Exchange] the galling burden of bachelorship for the easy yoke of matrimony.

All power in human hands is liable to be abused.

Philosophy is common sense with big words.

Respect for character is always diminished in proportion to the number among whom the blame or praise is to be divided.

We are teaching the world the great truth that Governments do better without Kings & Nobles than with them.

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.

Let me recommend the best medicine in the world a long journey at a mild season through a pleasant country in easy stages.

In the extent and proper structure of the Union, therefore, we behold a republican remedy for the disease incident to republican government.

I have ever regarded the freedom of religious opinions and worship as equally belonging to every sect.

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

I go on the principle that a public debt is a public curse and in a republican government more than in any other.

Every new and successful example of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters is of importance.

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

It is a principle incorporated into the settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute.

The temple through which alone lies the road to that of Liberty.

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

It may be concluded that a pure democracy ... can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction.

If the people are to be our governors, they must arm themselves with knowledge.

Those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges, whether a war ought to be commenced, continued, or concluded.

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

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

Cursed be all that learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ.

Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.

To consider the degree of concord which ultimately prevailed as less than a miracle.

Precedents once established are so much positive power.

Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.

They can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of the society.

[The public has] the habit now of invalidating opinions emanating from me by reference to my age and infirmities.

A distinction of property results from that very protection which a free Government gives to unequal faculties of acquiring it.

Our Constitution represents the work of the finger of Almighty God.

But the mere circumstance of complexion cannot deprive them of the character of men.

The personal right to acquire property, which is a natural right, gives to property, when acquired, a right to protection, as a social right.

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

People will continue to seek justice until it is found, or until liberty is lost in the pursuit.

What is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the Creator.

The Constitution of the U.S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion.

The future and success of America is not in this Constitution, but in the laws of God upon which this Constitution is founded.

Public opinion sets bounds to every government, and is the real sovereign in every free one.

The establishment of the chaplainship to Congress is a palpable violation of ... constitutional principles.

The safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions aim, and to which all such institutions must be sacrificed.

Are not the daily devotions conducted by these legal ecclesiastics already degenerating into a scanty attendance, and a tiresome formality?

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

Security against foreign danger is one of the primitive objects of civil society. It is an avowed and essential object of the American Union.

In all great changes of established governments, forms ought to give way to substance

A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species.

Popular liberty might then have escaped the indelible reproach of decreeing to the same citizens, the hemlock on one day, and statues on the next.

Armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.

No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity.

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

If our nation is ever taken over, it will be taken over from within.

Democracy was the right of the people to choose their own tyrant.

The rights of man as the foundation of just Government had been long understood but the superstructures projected had been sadly defective

No free country has ever been without Parties, which are a natural offspring of freedom.

Where a majority are united by a common sentiment, and have an opportunity, the rights of the minor party become insecure.

Our country, if it does justice to itself, will be the workshop of liberty to the civilized world.

Oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace.

Every word decides a question between power and liberty.

A public debt is a public curse.

A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

If men were angels, there would be no need of government.

Freedom has more often been lost in small steps by progressive incrementalism, than it has been by catastrophic upheavals such as violence or war.

No error is more certain than the one proceeding from a hasty and superficial view of the subject.

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

A government that does not trust it's law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms is itself unworthy of trust.

The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.