James Madison Quotes | GloryQuotes

James Madison Quotes About Freedom

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

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

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.

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

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

The loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or imagined, from abroad.

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

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.

More Quotes by James Madison

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

The internal effects of a mutable policy poisons the blessings of liberty itself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Union of religious sentiments begets a surprising confidence.

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

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.

Philosophy is common sense with big words.

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.

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

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

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.

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.

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

A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.

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

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.

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.

What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support?

Commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive, and impolitic.

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

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.

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.

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.

If we are to take for the criterion of truth the majority of suffrages, they ought to be gotten from those philosophic and patriotic citizens who cultivate their reason.

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.

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.

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.

Browse 73 quotes attributed to James Madison, listed in the source data as a American President, organized around themes such as Freedom, Happiness, War. Use the topic links to explore similar quotes, or browse the full author collection in one place.