A Quote by James Madison

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. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

James Madison

Quote Topics

Angels Control Controls Dependence Difficulty Doubt Enable Experience External First Framing Govern Governed Government Great Internal Itself Lies Mankind Men Must Necessary Necessity Neither Next No Doubt Nor Over People Place Primary Taught Were Which Would Would Be

Quote Author

James Madison
American - President
March 16, 1751 - June 28, 1836

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.

Alexander Hamilton

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

James Madison

What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? 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.

James Madison

A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

James Madison

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

James Madison

The government of heaven, if wickedly administered, would become one of the worst governments upon the face of the earth. No matter how good a government is, unless it is administered by righteous men, an evil government will be made of it.

Brigham Young

Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, government will of itself decay.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

If men were angels, there would be no need of government.

James Madison

Aggression is simply another name for government. Aggression, invasion, government, are interconvertible terms. The essence of government is control, or the attempt to control. He who attempts to control another is a governor, an aggressor, an invader; and the nature of such invasion is not changed, whether it is made by one man upon another man, after the manner of the ordinary criminal, or by one man upon all other men, after the manner of an absolute monarch, or by all other men upon one man, after the manner of a modern democracy.

Benjamin Tucker

Inflation is probably the most important single factor in that vicious circle wherein one kind of government action makes more and more government control necessary. For this reason all those who wish to stop the drift toward increasing government control should concentrate their effort on monetary policy.

Friedrich August von Hayek

Plato assumes somehow that government is a way in which you put unselfish and ungreedy men in charge of selfish and greedy men. But government is an institution whereby the people who have the greatest drive to get power over their fellow men, get in a position of controlling them. Look at the record of government. Where are these philosopher kings that Plato supposedly was trying to develop?

Milton Friedman

Were there a people of gods, their government would be democratic. So perfect a government is not for men.

Jean-Baptiste Rousseau

First there is the democratic idea: that all men are endowed by their creator with certain natural rights; that these rights are alienable only by the possessor thereof; that they are equal in men; that government is to organize these natural, unalienable and equal rights into institutions designed for the good of the governed, and therefore government is to be of all the people, by all the people, and for all the people. Here government is development, not exploitation.

Theodore Parker

In Madison's famous formulation in the Federalist, constitutional restrictions on government assume that we "first enable the government to control the governed." If the public authorities can be outgunned or bribed, the vibrancy of the private sector can be pathological.

Stephen Holmes

Government is not infallible. Government is only an executive control, a centralized authority for the purpose of expressing the will of the people; before you have a government you must have the people. Without the people there can be no government. The government must be, therefore, an expression of the will of the people.

Marcus Garvey

The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of Government. But what is Government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?

James Madison

A Quote by James Madison

Quote Topics

Quote Author

Related Quotes

Related Authors