James Madison quotes

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

— James Madison

“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

“The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.”

— James Madison

“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

“Union of religious sentiments begets a surprising confidence.”

— James Madison

“Any reading not of a vicious species must be a good substitute for the amusements too apt to fill up the leisure of the labouring classes.”

— James Madison

“I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishment.”

— James Madison

“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.”

— James Madison

“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

“The internal effects of a mutable policy poisons the blessings of liberty itself.”

— James Madison

“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

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

— James Madison

“What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support?”

— James Madison