James Madison Quotes

You don't have smooth sailing in the American system no matter who's in charge.

I think daily that the country's future is being thrown to the wind.

We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure.

And it seems to me in that experience may lie at least some of the clues for policy development perhaps constitutional changes as well that Labour will need to make at the national level too.

It is true that Egypt's attempt at democracy after the 2011 revolution encountered many obstacles in governance and infrastructure.

In the Reagan administration, a great speech was just the first step in a long process. In the Obama administration, it's the only step.

We believe that this is not right for a democracy to make revolutions the beacon of promoting democracy.

There's always cause for concern if bad policies are pursued.

Feelings are more dangerous than ideas, because they aren't susceptible to rational evaluation. They grow quietly, spreading underground, and erupt suddenly, all over the place.

A week is a long time in politics.

Washington is unpredictable these days.

The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

No particular Government policy decision, or even an overall policy stance, which we could change in order somehow to remove our society from the Al-Qaeda firing line. Its nihilism means that our societies would cease to be a target only if we were to renounce all the values of freedom and liberty that we have fought to extend over so many years. Our only answer to this threat must be to contest and then to defeat it

The [political] system is too responsive now. It responds to every short term whim without regard to the long term.

There are few things wholly evil, or wholly good. Almost every thing, especially of government policy, is an inseparable compound of the two.

Political unity should be given great weight, but it also should be related to some sensible program.

There is a lack of emphasis and detail on self-government of business enterprises and community government. There is too much emphasis on the part that the Project Director and his staff play. Governmental officials should not impose their will on the residents, but the government should be formulated by the residents. It is absolutely essential that the personnel understand and sympathize with the policy of self-government.

Policy remedies tend to have unfortunate side effects.

Is military occupation likely to be the midwife of democracy?

How central shall democracy be in everything else we want to do in the world?

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

No one wants war, neither we nor you. Our greatest efforts have been focusing on own people and forces within our boundaries, without war, to uproot the zealot Mullahs governing our country and replace them with a secular, democratic government which respects human rights and freedom.

I worry that a democratic transition in this period for a state like the U.a. E. would put, us in the throes of reactionary conservatism, probably for the next 30 or 40 years. I look at what is happening in Egypt and other places, and I wonder, do I need that kind of transition?

Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty; that our governments are too unstable; that the public good is disregarded in the conflict of rival parties; and that measures are too often decided, not according to rules of justice, and the rights of the minor party; but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority....

Good or bad, political choices have an impact on the way country’s behave.