James Madison Quotes

REPUBLIC, n. A nation in which, the thing governing and the thing governed being the same, there is only a permitted authority to enforce an optional obedience.

If you begin by saying, 'Thou shalt not lie,' there is no longer any possibility of political action.

It's very hard to uphold individual liberty when the person you're representing is often a crook.

The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power.

A country cannot subsist well without liberty, nor liberty without virtue.

Mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government.

The great questions that have troubled the country are about the authority of the magistrates and the liberty of the people.

Democracy takes time. Dictatorship is quicker, but too many people get shot.

There is nothing left for Mankind but a Republic.

Politics. The art of governing mankind by deceiving them.

Democracy is very powerful but very fragile.

Democracy is hypocrisy without limitation.

Democracy is a relatively new form of government.

Civil liberty is the power of a civil society or state to govern itself by its own discretion or by laws of its own making, without being subject to the impositions of any power in appointing and directing which the collective body of the people have no concern and over which they have no control

The principal end a prince was made for is to take care, that every one should have his rights. This ought to engage him to study not only the science of those great civilians, who ascend to the first principles of law, which regulate human society, and are the basis as it were of government and politics; but also that part of the law, which descends to the affairs of particular persons. This branch is generally left for the gentlemen of the long robe, and not admitted into the education of princes, though they are every day to pass judgment upon the fortunes, liberties, lives, honor, and reputation of their subjects. Princes are continually talked to of valour and liberality; but if justice do not regulate these two qualities, they degenerate into the most odious vices. Without justice valour does nothing but destroy; and liberality is only a foolish profuseness. Justice keeps all in order, and contains within bounds him, who distributes it, as well as those, to whom it is distributed.

I loved being governor. It’s like running your own little country.

We wrestle with the political issues of who has stewardship over life.

Elections are about choices.

American politics is always an open competition.

Living in a republic demands a great deal of us.

In every sort of politics, in history, it has its own problems, its leaders, its own opposition.

If democracy is finished, all is lost.

I'm going to try and make people realize that in order to live the life they are living, they need to have democracy, and it's being threatened.

Government, in it's last analysis, is organized force.

Every word of [the Constitution] decides a question between power and liberty.