I go on the principle that a public debt is a public curse and in a republican government more than in any other.
James MadisonRead
Happily for America, happily, we trust, for the whole human race, they pursued a new and more noble course. They accomplished a revolution which has no parallel in the annals of human society.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the extraordinary nature of the American Revolution and its hopeful impact on humanity.
James Madison reflects on the American Revolution as a significant turning point not just for America, but for the entire human race. He suggests that the revolution marked a departure from traditional governance, favoring a noble pursuit of liberty and democracy that was unprecedented in human history.
Themes
RevolutionHumanityFreedomDemocracyNobility
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about national pride, one might reference Madison's view on the American Revolution as a model for future struggles for freedom.
More from James Madison
All quotes →No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause; because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. With equal, nay with greater reason, a body of men are unfit to be both judges and parties at the same time.
James MadisonRead
I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations; but, on a candid examination of history, we shall find that turbulence, violence, and abuse of power, by the majority trampling on the rights of the minority, have produced factions and commotions, which, in republics, have, more frequently than any other cause, produced despotism.
James MadisonRead
The advice nearest to my heart and deepest in my convictions is that the Union of the States be cherished and perpetuated.
James MadisonRead
Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
James MadisonRead
The magnitude of this evil among us is so deeply felt, and so universally acknowledged, that no merit could be greater than that of devising a satisfactory remedy for it.
James MadisonRead
Similar quotes
History is simply a piece of paper covered with print: the main thing is to make history, not to write it.
Otto Von BismarckRead
Nations without a past are contradictions in terms. What makes a nation is the past, what justifies one nation against others is the past, and historians are the people who produce it.
Eric HobsbawmRead
When people talk as if the Crusades were nothing more than an aggressive raid against Islam, they seem to forget in the strangest way that Islam itself was only an aggressive raid against the old and ordered civilization in these parts. I do not say it in mere hostility to the religion of Mahomet; I am fully conscious of many values and virtues in it; but certainly it was Islam that was the invasion and Christendom that was the thing invaded.
Gilbert K. ChestertonRead
Nowadays, it is no longer possible to maintain that the Nazi-Soviet pact of 23 August 1939 was a fiction invented by bourgeois-imperialist enemies. Everyone has seen the film clips of Herr Ribbentrop landing in Moscow, and of Stalin smiling broadly as Ribbentrop and Molotov signed up side by side.
Norman DaviesRead
History knows no scruples and no hesitation. Inert and unnering flows towards her goal. History knows herway. She makes no mistakes.
Arthur KoestlerRead
Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, he began at the moment that it broke out, believing that it would be a great war, and more memorable than any that had preceded it.
ThucydidesRead