The essence of government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

—James Madison

About James Madison

Portrait of James Madison

James Madison (March 16, 1751 [O.S. March 5, 1750] – June 28, 1836) was a Founding Father and the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Before his presidency, Madison was a statesman and diplomat. Madison was popularly acclaimed as the "Father of the Constitution" for his...

More quotations from James Madison

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

—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.

—James Madison

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

—James Madison

politics society angels

More quotations tagged with “power”

Be fit for more than the thing you are now doing. Let everyone know that you have a reserve in yourself; that you have more power than you are now using. If you are not too large for the place you occupy, you are too small for it.

—James A. Garfield

The great secret of power is never to will to do more than you can accomplish.

—Henrik Ibsen

There are similarities between absolute power and absolute faith: a demand for absolute obedience, a readiness to attempt the impossible, a bias for simple solutionsto cut the knot rather than unravel it, the viewing of compromise as surrender. Both absolute power and absolute faith are instruments of dehumanization. Hence, absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.

Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself.

Let not thy will roar, when thy power can but whisper.

—Dr. Thomas Fuller

History

11 Jul 2015 Added