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

James Madison

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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
Outlived
Contemporaries
Ought
Forget
Thought
May
Many

More quotes by James Madison

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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
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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
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A local spirit will infallibly prevail much more in the members of Congress than a national spirit will prevail in the legislatures of the particular States.
James Madison
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The eyes of the world being thus on our Country, it is put the more on its good behavior, and under the greater obligation also, to do justice to the Tree of Liberty by an exhibition of the fine fruits we gather from it.
James Madison
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We have seen that the tendency of republican governments is to an aggrandizement of the legislative at the expense of the other departments. The appeals to the people, therefore, would usually be made by the executive and judiciary departments.
James Madison
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Because we hold it for 'a fundamental and undeniable truth', that religion or 'the duty which we owe to our Creator' and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence.
James Madison
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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
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The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.
James Madison
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[I]t is the reason alone, of the public, that ought to control and regulate the government.
James Madison
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Those who proposed the Constitution knew, and those who ratified the Constitution also knew that this is...a limited government tied down to specified powers....It was never supposed or suspected that the old Congress could give away the money of the states to encourage agriculture or for any other purpose they pleased.
James Madison
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The Federal Constitution forms a happy combination in this respect the great and aggregate interests being referred to the national, the local and particular, to the state legislatures.
James Madison
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A distinction of property results from that very protection which a free Government gives to unequal faculties of acquiring it.
James Madison
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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
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The invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the Constituents.
James Madison
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An efficient militia is authorized and contemplated by the Constitution and required by the spirit and safety of free government.
James Madison
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Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any Manner contrary to their conscience.
James Madison
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There is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by...corporations. The power of all corporations ought to be limited in this respect. The growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses.
James Madison
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Every nation whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of its wiser neighbors.
James Madison
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A standing army is one of the greatest mischief that can possibly happen.
James Madison
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The nation which reposes on the pillow of political confidence, will sooner or later end its political existence in a deadly lethargy.
James Madison