Top 350 James Madison Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Crisis is the rallying cry of the tyrant.”

— James Madison

2. “If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”

— James Madison

3. “Oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace.”

— James Madison

4. “Freedom has more often been lost in small steps by progressive incrementalism, than it has been by catastrophic upheavals such as violence or war.”

— James Madison

5. “The purpose of the Constitution is to restrict the majority’s ability to harm a minority.”

— James Madison

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

— James Madison

7. “The future and success of America is not in this Constitution, but in the laws of God upon which this Constitution is founded.”

— James Madison

8. “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance.”

— James Madison

9. “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

— James Madison

10. “If our nation is ever taken over, it will be taken over from within.”

— James Madison

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

— James Madison

12. “Resistance to tyranny is service to God.”

— James Madison

13. “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

— James Madison

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

— James Madison

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15. “The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable.”

— James Madison

16. “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.”

— James Madison

17. “Liberty is to faction what air is to fire...”

— James Madison

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

— James Madison

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19. “Democracy is the most vile form of government.”

— James Madison

20. “A government that does not trust it’s law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms is itself unworthy of trust.”

— James Madison

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

— James Madison

22. “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

— James Madison

23. “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

— James Madison

24. “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

25. “The primary function of government is to protect the minority of the opulent from the majority of the poor.”

— James Madison

26. “Cursed be all that learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ.”

— James Madison

27. “Bills of attainder, ex-post facto laws and laws impairing the obligation of contracts are contrary to the first principles of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation.”

— James Madison

28. “Philosophy is common sense with big words.”

— James Madison

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

— James Madison

30. “It is of great importance in a republic, not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers; but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part.”

— James Madison

31. “Conscience is the most sacred of all property.”

— James Madison

32. “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

33. “The ultimate authority resides in the people, and that if the federal government got too powerful and overstepped its authority, then the people would develop plans of resistance and resort to arms.”

— James Madison

34. “Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that, being a natural and unalienable right.”

— James Madison

35. “Disarm the people- that is the best and most effective way to enslave them.”

— James Madison

36. “The belief in a God All Powerful wise and good, is so essential to the moral order of the world and to the happiness of man, that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources nor adapted with too much solicitude to the different characters and capacities impressed with it.”

— James Madison

37. “The very definition of tyranny is when all powers are gathered under one place.”

— James Madison

38. “A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.”

— James Madison

39. “It is vain to say that enlightened statesmen will always be able to adjust their interests. Enlightened men will not always be at the helm.”

— James Madison

40. “Torrents of blood have been spilt in the world in vain attempts of the secular arm to extinguish religious discord, by proscribing all differences in religious opinions.”

— James Madison

41. “Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.”

— James Madison

42. “Armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.”

— James Madison

43. “Landholders ought to have a share in the government to support these invaluable interests and check the other many. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.”

— James Madison

44. “Toleration is not the opposite of intolerance, but is the counterfeit of it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes to itself the right of withholding liberty of conscience, the other of granting it.”

— James Madison

45. “All power in human hands is liable to be abused.”

— James Madison

46. “The religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate.”

— James Madison

47. “Union of religious sentiments begets a surprising confidence, and ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption; all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects.”

— James Madison

48. “The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it.”

— James Madison

49. “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land.”

— James Madison

50. “The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state shall not be questioned.”

— James Madison