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.
Author
James Madison
68 quotations
About James Madison
James Madison was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Father who served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison was popularly acclaimed as the "Father of the Constitution" for his pivotal role in drafting and promoting the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights.
Read on Wikipedia → Find books by James MadisonWar contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason.
The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.
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.
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.
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.
Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.
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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.
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.
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.
A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.
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.
In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.
Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.
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.
The essence of Government is power and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.
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 truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.
Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.
All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.
Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.
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.
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.
Knowledge will forever govern ignorance and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.