James Madison

“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.”

“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.”

“War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.”

“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?”

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

“A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.”

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

“We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.”

“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 in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

“As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.”

“I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution.”

“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”

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

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

“Philosophy is common sense with big words.”

“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

“The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.”

“לקונגרס אסור בשום אופן לפרוק אזרח מנשקו, אלא אם היה מעורב במרד ממשי.”

“כאשר הכוח האמיתי נמצא בידי הממשלה, ישנו חשש אמיתי של דיכוי.”

“הממשל אותו אנו מעוניינים להקים מתוכנן לשרוד במשך עידנים.”