Top 350 James Madison Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “We’ve staked our future on our ability to follow the Ten Commandments with all our heart.”

— James Madison

52. “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”

— James Madison

53. “It is a melancholy reflection that liberty should be equally exposed to danger whether the government have too much power or too little power and that the line which divides these extremes should be so inaccurately defined by experience.”

— James Madison

54. “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.”

— James Madison

55. “Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.”

— James Madison

56. “The characters and events depicted in the damn bible are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.”

— James Madison

57. “The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of money.”

— James Madison

58. “Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.”

— James Madison

59. “I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”

— James Madison

60. “It is a principle incorporated into the settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute.”

— James Madison

61. “Nothing could be more irrational than to give the people power, and to withhold from them information without which power is abused.”

— James Madison

62. “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security –.”

— James Madison

63. “History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and it’s issuance.”

— James Madison

64. “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. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and the next place, oblige it to control itself.”

— James Madison

65. “Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression.”

— James Madison

66. “It has been said that all Government is an evil. It would be more proper to say that the necessity of any Government is a misfortune. This necessity however exists; and the problem to be solved is, not what form of Government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect.”

— James Madison

67. “The civil rights of none, shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext infringed.”

— James Madison

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

— James Madison

69. “There never was an assembly of men, charged with a great and arduous trust, who were more pure in their motives, or more exclusively or anxiously devoted to the object committed to them.”

— James Madison

70. “War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement.”

— James Madison

71. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

— James Madison

72. “It is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity toward each other.”

— James Madison

73. “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”

— James Madison

74. “In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature.”

— James Madison

75. “A universal peace, it is to be feared, is in the catalogue of events, which will never exist but in the imaginations of visionary philosophers, or in the breasts of benevolent enthusiasts.”

— James Madison

76. “To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;.”

— James Madison

77. “The express authority of the people alone could give validity to the Constitution.”

— James Madison

78. “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

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

— James Madison

80. “Experience has instructed us that no skill in the science of government has yet been able to discriminate and define, with sufficient certainty, its three great provinces the legislative, executive, and judiciary; or even the privileges and powers of the different legislative branches.”

— James Madison

81. “Among the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction.”

— James Madison

82. “The fetters imposed on liberty at home have ever been forged out of the weapons provided for defense against real, pretended, or imaginary dangers from abroad.”

— James Madison

83. “People will continue to seek justice until it is found, or until liberty is lost in the pursuit.”

— James Madison

84. “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.”

— James Madison

85. “Those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges, whether a war ought to be commenced, continued, or concluded.”

— James Madison

86. “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.”

— James Madison

87. “Having outlived so many of my contemporaries, I ought not to forget that I may be thought to have outlived myself.”

— James Madison

88. “Temporary deviations from fundamental principles are always more or less dangerous. When the first pretext fails, those who become interested in prolonging the evil will rarely be at a loss for other pretexts.”

— James Madison

89. “Every new and successful example of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters is of importance.”

— James Madison

90. “It is to the press mankind are indebted for having dispelled the clouds which so long encompassed religion, for disclosing her genuine lustre, and disseminating her salutary doctrines.”

— James Madison

91. “The number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state.”

— James Madison

92. “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.”

— James Madison

93. “An efficient militia is authorized and contemplated by the Constitution and required by the spirit and safety of free government.”

— James Madison

94. “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.”

— James Madison

95. “Is there a Legislative power in fact, not expressly prohibited by the Constitution, which might not, according to the doctrine of the Court, be exercised as a means of carrying into effect some specified Power?”

— James Madison

96. “A public debt is a public curse.”

— James Madison

97. “The nation which reposes on the pillow of political confidence, will sooner or later end its political existence in a deadly lethargy.”

— James Madison

98. “The most productive system of finance will always be the least burdensome.”

— James Madison

99. “No error is more certain than the one proceeding from a hasty and superficial view of the subject.”

— James Madison

100. “The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.”

— James Madison