Top 350 James Madison Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.”

— James Madison

202. “The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger; those of the State governments, in times of peace and security.”

— James Madison

203. “Our country, if it does justice to itself, will be the workshop of liberty to the civilized world.”

— James Madison

204. “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.”

— James Madison

205. “There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied, and which, therefore, more needs elucidation, than the current one, that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.”

— James Madison

206. “Nothing has yet been offered to invalidate the doctrine that the meaning of the Constitution may as well be ascertained by the Legislative as by the Judicial authority.”

— James Madison

207. “The safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions aim, and to which all such institutions must be sacrificed.”

— James Madison

208. “The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society.”

— James Madison

209. “Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion and Government in the Constitution of the United States, the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history.”

— James Madison

210. “Each generation should be made to bear the burden of its own wars, instead of carrying them on, at the expense of other generations.”

— James Madison

211. “It is a misfortune incident to republican government, though in a less degree than to other governments, that those who administer it, may forget their obligations to their constituents, and prove unfaithful to their important trust.”

— James Madison

212. “A people armed and free, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition and is a bulwark for the nation against foreign invasion and domestic oppression.”

— James Madison

213. “Stability in government is essential to national character and to the advantages annexed to it, as well as to that repose and confidence in the minds of the people, which are among the chief blessings of civil society.”

— James Madison

214. “The political truths declared in that solemn manner acquire by degrees the character of fundamental maxims of free Government, and as they become incorporated with national sentiment, counteract the impulses of interest and passion.”

— James Madison

215. “A victorious and powerful ally is but another name for a master.”

— James Madison

216. “The proposed Constitution is, in strictness, neither a national nor a federal constitution; but a composition of both.”

— James Madison

217. “I own myself the friend to a very free system of commerce, and hold it as a truth, that commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive and impolitic.”

— James Madison

218. “Measures should be enacted which, without violating the rights of property, would reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity, and raise extreme indigence towards a state of comfort.”

— James Madison

219. “I have ever regarded the freedom of religious opinions and worship as equally belonging to every sect.”

— James Madison

220. “As the cool and deliberate sense of the community ought, in all governments, and actually will, in all free governments, ultimately prevail over the views of its rulers; so there are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn.”

— James Madison

221. “A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them.”

— James Madison

222. “In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights.”

— James Madison

223. “A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species.”

— James Madison

224. “What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?”

— James Madison

225. “Freedom arises from a multiplicity of sects, which pervades America, and is the best and only security for religious liberty in America.”

— James Madison

226. “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.”

— James Madison

227. “Were it possible so to accelerate the intercourse between every part of the globe that all its inhabitants could be united under the superintending authority of an ecumenical Council, how great a portion of human evils would be avoided.”

— James Madison

228. “Procrastination in the beginning and precipitation towards the conclusion is the characteristic of such bodies.”

— James Madison

229. “From the the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results.”

— James Madison

230. “We maintain therefore that in matters of Religion, no man’s right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society, and that Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance.”

— James Madison

231. “The censorial power is in the people over the government, and not in the government over the people.”

— James Madison

232. “A just government has no need for the clergy or the church.”

— James Madison

233. “The necessity of a senate is not less indicated by the propensity of all single and numerous assemblies, to yield to the impulse of sudden and violent passions, and to be seduced by factious leaders, into intemperate and pernicious resolutions.”

— James Madison

234. “An oath-the strongest of religious ties.”

— James Madison

235. “If this spirit shall ever be so far debased, as to tolerate a law not obligatory on the legislature, as well as on the people, the people will be prepared to tolerate any thing but liberty.”

— James Madison

236. “The general government is proscribed from the interfering, in any manner whatsoever, in matters respecting religion; and it may be thought to do this, in ascertaining who, and who are not, ministers of the gospel.”

— James Madison

237. “In this relation, then, the proposed government cannot be deemed a national one; since its jurisdiction extends to certain enumerated objects only, and leaves to the several states, a residuary and inviolable sovereignty over all other objects.”

— James Madison

238. “Should ardent spirits be everywhere banished from the list of drinks, it will be a revolution not the least remarkable in this revolutionary age, and our country will have its full share in that as in other merits.”

— James Madison

239. “When men exercise their reason coolly and freely, on a variety of distinct questions, they inevitably fall into different opinions, on some of them. When they are governed by a common passion, their opinions if they are so to be called, will be the same.”

— James Madison

240. “The personal right to acquire property, which is a natural right, gives to property, when acquired, a right to protection, as a social right.”

— James Madison

241. “It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.”

— James Madison

242. “It is in vain to oppose constitutional barriers to the impulse of self-preservation. It is worse than in vain; because it plants in the Constitution itself necessary usurpations of power, every precedent of which is a germ of unnecessary and multiplied repetitions.”

— James Madison

243. “The President is responsible to the public for the conduct of the person he has nominated and appointed.”

— James Madison

244. “The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.”

— James Madison

245. “Another advantage accruing from this ingredient in the constitution of a senate, is the additional impediment it must prove against improper acts of legislation. No law or resolution can now be passed without the concurrence first of a majority of the people, and then of a majority of the states.”

— James Madison

246. “Nor is any evidence to be found, either in History or Human Nature, that nations are to be bribed out of a spirit of encroachment and aggression, by humiliations which nourish their pride, or by concessions that extend their resources and power.”

— James Madison

247. “Despotism can only exist in darkness.”

— James Madison

248. “By rendering the labor of one, the property of the other, they cherish pride, luxury, and vanity on one side; on the other, vice and servility, or hatred and revolt.”

— James Madison

249. “Precedents once established are so much positive power.”

— James Madison

250. “War contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason.”

— James Madison