Top 73 Quotes by James Madison

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.

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.

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

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

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

Union of religious sentiments begets a surprising confidence.

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.

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.

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

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.