FAMOUS QUOTES OF JAMES MADISON

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

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

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

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

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

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

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

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

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

“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 in blood for centuries.”

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

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

“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.” BEST QUOTES EVER ABOUT INSPIRATION

“The advancement of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, by all proper means, will not, I trust, need recommendation. But I cannot forbear intimating to you the expediency of giving effectual encouragement as well to the introduction of new and useful inventions from abroad, as to the exertions of skill and genius in producing them at home.”

“The purpose of the Constitution is to restrict the majority’s ability to harm a minority, while giving the majority more ways to exact change when their rights are violated.”

“If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions.”

“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.”

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

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

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

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

“With a strong, well-regulated militia, the security of the republic would not be threatened as it is today by a standing army.”

“In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed, and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

“It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty will be charged to dangers, real or imagined, from abroad.”

“We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”