Top 73 Quotes by James Madison

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

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.

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.

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.

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

As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.

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

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.

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

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.