James Madison, Jr was one of the founding fathers of the American and the Fourth president of the United States. He was known for being the “Father of the Constitution” for his role in drafting and promoting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

James Madison Best Quote

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

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

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.

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

James Madison Quotes on Government, Men and Power

James Madison Government Quote

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

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.

Religion flourishes in greater purity without than with the aid of 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

If men were angels no government would be necessary.

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

Do not separate text from historical background. If you do you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution which can only end in a distorted bastardized form of illegitimate government.

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

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.

James Madison Men Quote

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.

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

James Madison Power Quote

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.

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

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

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

James Madison Quotes on Freedom, Communication and Press

James Madison Freedom Quote

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.

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

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

James Madison Communication Quote

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

James Madison Press Quote

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.

James Madison quotes on Knowledge, Education, Learning, Science and Wisdom

James Madison Knowledge Quote

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

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

James Madison Education Quote

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.

James Madison Learning Quote

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?

James Madison Science Quote

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.

James Madison Wisdom Quote

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.

James Madison quote on Happiness, Home, Food, Trust, and Hope

James Madison Happiness Quote

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

James Madison Home Quote

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

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.

James Madison Food Quote

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.

James Madison Trust Quote

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.

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.

James Madison Hope Quote

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

James Madison quotes on Money and War

James Madison Money Quote

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

James Madison War Quote

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.

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

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