James Madison Quotes About Opinions

Quotes about: Opinions

• Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

  James Madison

  Men, Political, Liberty

  James Madison (1867). “1829-1836”, p.478

• There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied, and which, therefore, more needs elucidation, than the current one, that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.

  James Madison

  Political, Liberty, Majority

  James Madison, David B. Mattern (1997). “James Madison's "Advice to My Country"”, p.68, University of Virginia Press

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

  James Madison

  Exercise, Men, Long

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2015). “The Federalist Papers: A Collection of Essays Written in Favour of the New Constitution”, p.48, Coventry House Publishing

• In the latter sense, a man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them. He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them. He has an equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them. In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

  James Madison

  Religious, Communication, Men

  "Advice to My Country".

• Public opinion sets bounds to every government, and is the real sovereign in every free one.

  James Madison

  Real, Government, Public Opinion

  James Madison (1867). “1829-1836”, p.460

• There is not a more important and fundamental principle in legislation, than that the ways and means ought always to face the public engagements; that our appropriations should ever go hand in hand with our promises. To say that the United States should be answerable for twenty-five millions of dollars without knowing whether the ways and means can be provided, and without knowing whether those who are to succeed us will think with us on the subject, would be rash and unjustifiable. Sir, in my opinion, it would be hazarding the public faith in a manner contrary to every idea of prudence.

  James Madison

  Mean, Thinking, Knowing

• A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good.

  James Madison

  Party, Passion, Practice

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1842). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788”, p.44

• Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.

  James Madison

  Passion, Government, Democracies Have

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, Henry Barton Dawson (1864). “The Fœderalist: A Collection of Essays, Written in Favor of the New Constitution, as Agreed Upon by the Fœderal Convention, September 17, 1787. Reprinted from the Original Text. With an Historical Introduction and Notes”, p.60, New York : C. Scribner ; London : Sampson Low

• Torrents of blood have been spilt in the world in vain attempts of the secular arm to extinguish religious discord, by proscribing all differences in religious opinions.

  James Madison

  Religious, Blood, Differences

  James Madison, Virginia. General assembly, 1785 (1828). “A memorial and remonstrance, on the religious rights of man; written in 1784-5, at the request of the religious society of Baptists in Virginia. ...”, p.9

• A zeal for different opinions concerning religion...[has] divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good.

  James Madison

  Party, Religion, Atheism

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1864). “The Federalist: A Commentary on the Constitution of the United States”, p.106

• As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other, and the former will be objects to which the latter attach themselves.

  James Madison

  Passion, Exercise, Men

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, Henry Barton Dawson (1864). “The Fœderalist: A Collection of Essays, Written in Favor of the New Constitution, as Agreed Upon by the Fœderal Convention, September 17, 1787. Reprinted from the Original Text. With an Historical Introduction and Notes”, p.57, New York : C. Scribner ; London : Sampson Low

• The settled opinion here is that religion is essentially distinct from Civil Govt. and exempt from its cognizance; that a connection between them is injurious to both.

  James Madison

  Religion, Atheism, Connections

  James Madison, David B. Mattern (1997). “James Madison's "Advice to My Country"”, p.89, University of Virginia Press

• It degrades from the equal rank of Citizens all those whose opinions in Religion do not bend to those of the Legislative authority. Distant as it may be in its present form from the Inquisition, it differs from it only in degree.

  James Madison

  Religion, Atheism, May

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

• Torrents of blood have been spilt in the old world, by vain attempts of the secular arm, to extinguish Religious discord, by proscribing all difference in religious opinion. Time has at length revealed the true remedy. Every relaxation of narrow and rigorous policy, wherever it has been tried, has been found to assuage the disease.

  James Madison

  Religious, Blood, Differences

  James Madison (1819). “Religious Freedom. A memorial and remonstrance drawn by ... J. Madison, late President of the United States, ... against the general assessment in “a Bill establishing provision for the teachers of the Christian religion, presented to the General Assembly”, p.10

• I have received your letter of the 6th, with the eloquent discourse delivered at the consecration of the Jewish Synagogue. Having ever regarded the freedom of religious opinions and worship as equally belonging to every sect, and the secure enjoyment of it as the best human provision for bringing all either into the same way of thinking, or into that mutual charity which is the only substitute, I observe with pleasure the view you give of the spirit in which your sect partake of the blessings offered by our Government and laws.

  James Madison

  Religious, Thinking, Blessing

  James Madison (1867). “1816-1828”, p.97

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

  James Madison

  Communication, Men, Liberty

  James Madison (1867). “1829-1836”, p.478

• The great objects which presented themselves [to the Constitutional Convention] ... formed a task more difficult than can be well conceived by those who were not concerned in the execution of it. Adding to these considerations the natural diversity of human opinions on all new and complicated subjects, it is impossible to consider the degree of concord which ultimately prevailed as less than a miracle.

  James Madison

  Diversity, Miracle, Degrees

  James Madison, David B. Mattern (1997). “James Madison's "Advice to My Country"”, p.27, University of Virginia Press

• [Montesquieu] lifted the veil from the venerable errors which enslaved opinion, and pointed the way to those luminous truths of which he had but a glimpse himself.

  James Madison

  Errors, Glimpse, Veils

  James Madison (1867). “1829-1836”, p.474

• I have ever regarded the freedom of religious opinions and worship as equally belonging to every sect.

  James Madison

  Religious, Atheism, Opinion

  James Madison (1867). “1816-1828: 1816-1828”, p.97

• [Religious liberty was] in its nature an inalienable right ... because the opinions of men, depending only upon the evidence contemplated by their minds, cannot follow the dictates of other men.

  James Madison

  Religious, Men, Mind

• Is it not the glory of the people of America, that whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience? To this manly spirit, posterity will be indebted for the possession, and the world for the example of the numerous innovations displayed on the American theatre, in favor of private rights and public happiness.

  James Madison

  Rights, Names, America

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Quentin P. Taylor, John Jay (1998). “The Essential Federalist: A New Reading of the Federalist Papers”, p.57, Rowman & Littlefield

• With regard to Banks, they have taken too deep and too wide a root in social transactions, to be got rid of altogether, if that were desirable. They have a hold on public opinion, which alone would make it expedient to aim rather at the improvement, than the suppression of them. As now generally constituted, their advantages whatever they be, are outweighed by the excesses of their paper emissions, and the partialities and corruption with which they are administered.

  James Madison

  Taken, Roots, Public Opinion

• Our opinions agree as to the evil, moral, political, and economical, of slavery.

  James Madison

  Evil, Political, Slavery

  James Madison (1867). “1816-1828”, p.193

• Nothing is so contagious as opinion, especially on questions which, being susceptible of very different glosses, beget in the mind a distrust of itself.

  James Madison

  Mind, Public Opinion, Different

  James Madison (1867). “1769-1793”, p.510

• When men exercise their reason coolly and freely, on a variety of distinct questions, they inevitably fall into different opinions, on some of them. When they are governed by a common passion, their opinions if they are so to be called, will be the same.

  James Madison

  Fall, Passion, Exercise

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1842). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788”, p.237

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