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But what is Government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?

— James Madison Federalist Papers (1787)

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Government

More quotes by James Madison

The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.

Federalist Papers (1787)

Slavery is, as you justly complain, a sad blot on our free country.

Letter to Lafayette (1821)

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.

The Constitution requires an adoption in toto, and for ever.

Letter to Alexander Hamilton (1788)

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

Federalist Papers (1787)

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Ill can he rule the great, that cannot reach the small.

Edmund Spenser The Faerie Queene (1589)

Bureaucracy and social harmony are inversely proportional to each other.

Leon Trotsky The Revolution Betrayed (1936)

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

John Adams

Government is either organized benevolence or organized madness; its peculiar magnitude permits no shading.

John Updike Buchanan Dying : A Play (1974)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: James Madison (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.