James Madison
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.Collection: Power
The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.Collection: Graduation
Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.Collection: Power
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.Collection: Men
I have no doubt but that the misery of the lower classes will be found to abate whenever the Government assumes a freer aspect and the laws favor a subdivision of Property.Collection: Government
War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.Collection: Government
Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.Collection: Government
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.Collection: Trust
To the press alone, chequered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression.Collection: Alone
Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.Collection: Power
The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.Collection: Knowledge
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.Collection: Trust
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.Collection: Science
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.Collection: Government
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.Collection: Government
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.Collection: Happiness
A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.Collection: Communication
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.Collection: Religion
A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.Collection: Alone
Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.Collection: Power
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.Collection: Home
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.Collection: Independence
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?Collection: Learning
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.Collection: War
A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.Collection: Government
To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.Collection: Government
Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.Collection: Power
The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of money.Collection: Money
All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.Collection: Power
In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.Collection: Great
The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.Collection: Government
What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?Collection: Government
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.Collection: Men
The happy Union of these States is a wonder; their Constitution a miracle; their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world.Collection: Hope
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.Collection: Freedom
The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger; those of the state governments, in times of peace and security.Collection: Government
Every nation whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of its wiser neighbors.Collection: Wisdom
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.Collection: Government
Let me recommend the best medicine in the world: a long journey, at a mild season, through a pleasant country, in easy stages.Collection: Best
The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.Collection: Home
If men were angels, no government would be necessary.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Education
No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.Collection: Freedom
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
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.
Philosophy is common sense with big words.
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.
As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.
I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishment.
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.