The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.
Politicians
James Madison
Fourth U.S. president (1751-1836), known as the "Father of the Constitution" and the "Father of the Bill of Rights." He drafted the Virginia Plan that framed the 1787 Convention, co-authored The Federalist Papers (writing 29 of the 85 essays, including the canonical Nos. 10 and 51), and supplied the working theory of separation of powers that still organizes constitutional argument worldwide. As Jefferson's secretary of state he was the named defendant in Marbury v. Madison. As president he led the country into the War of 1812 and was forced to flee Washington as British troops burned the Capitol and the White House. He owned more than a hundred enslaved people across his lifetime and freed none in his will.
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James Madison's Other Quotes
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.
The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.
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 means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.
Related Quotes
Exile is not an evil.
-- Gaius Musonius Rufus
Philosophy is nothing other than the pursuit of nobility and goodness.
-- Gaius Musonius Rufus
Cato, while he lived, lived in such a way that he lacked nothing — so long as he was free to die.
-- Cato the Younger
What frees you from slavery is not wealth but needing nothing.
-- Crates of Thebes
Educate the children and it will not be necessary to punish the men.
-- Pythagoras
If I were not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes.
-- Diogenes of Sinope