Quote

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.

James Madison

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

James Madison
Age: 85 †
Born: 1751
Born: March 16
Died: 1836
Died: June 28
4Th U.S. President
Diplomat
Lawyer
Philosopher
Politician
Slaveholder
Statesperson
Writer
Port Conway
Virginia
James Madison
Jr.
President Madison
J. Madison
Madison
War
Abroad
Truth
Patriotic
Provisions
Home
Libertarian
Federalist
Real
Universal
Pretended
Loss
Forefathers
Danger
Charged
Liberty
Provision
Freedom
Antiwar

More quotes by James Madison

Image
For the same reason that the members of the State legislatures will be unlikely to attach themselves sufficiently to national objects, the members of the federal legislature will be likely to attach themselves too much to local objects.
James Madison
Image
Our country, if it does justice to itself, will be the workshop of liberty to the civilized world.
James Madison
Image
We have the self-evident right to regulate our trade according to our own will and our own interest . . . . This right can be denied to no independent nation.
James Madison
Image
Nothing could be more irrational than to give the people power, and to withhold from them information without which power is abused.
James Madison
Image
As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.
James Madison
Image
The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to an uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.
James Madison
Image
What a perversion of the normal order of things! ... to make power the primary and central object of the social system, and Liberty but its satellite.
James Madison
Image
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
Image
The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.
James Madison
Image
We have seen the mere distinction of color made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man.
James Madison
Image
Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.
James Madison
Image
The American people owe it to themselves, and to the cause of free Government, to prove by their establishments for the advancement and diffusion of knowledge, that their political Institutionsare as favorable to the intellectual and moral improvement of Man as they are conformable to his individual and social rights.
James Madison
Image
But the mild voice of reason, pleading the cause of an enlarged and permanent interest, is but too often drowned, before public bodies as well as individuals, by the clamors of an impatient avidity for immediate and immoderate gain.
James Madison
Image
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
Image
Knowledge will forever govern ignorance and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
James Madison
Image
But the mere circumstance of complexion cannot deprive them of the character of men.
James Madison
Image
As to the permanent interest of individuals in the aggregated interests of the community, and in the proverbial maxim, that honesty is the best policy, present temptation is often found to be an overmatch for those considerations.
James Madison
Image
Procrastination in the beginning and precipitation towards the conclusion is the characteristic of such bodies.
James Madison
Image
In all great changes of established governments, forms ought to give way to substance
James Madison
Image
A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.
James Madison