James Madison quotes

James Madison was an American statesman and the fourth president of the United States. Known as the "Father of the Constitution," he played a pivotal role in drafting and promoting the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. He profoundly shaped the foundations of American democracy. Here are 227 of his quotes:

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

James Madison

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.

James Madison

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

James Madison

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

James Madison

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

James Madison

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.

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

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

James Madison

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

James Madison

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

James Madison

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.

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

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.

James Madison

Philosophy is common sense with big words.

James Madison

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

James Madison

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

James Madison

Another of my wishes is to depend as little as possible on the labor of slaves.

James Madison

A watchful eye must be kept on ourselves, lest while we are building ideal monuments of renown and bliss here, we neglect to have our names enrolled in the annals of Heaven.

James Madison

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.

James Madison

Learned Institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people. They throw that light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments on the public liberty.

James Madison

American citizens are instrumental in carrying on a traffic in enslaved Africans, equally in violation of the laws of humanity and in defiance of those of their own country. The same just and benevolent motives which produced interdiction in force against this criminal conduct will doubtless be felt by Congress in devising further means of suppressing the evil.

James Madison

As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other, and the former will be objects to which the latter attach themselves.

James Madison