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
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.
Interpretation
Religious disagreements lead to division and conflict among people instead of unity and cooperation.
James Madison's quote reflects on the destructive impact of differing religious views on humanity, emphasizing that such discord often leads to animosity and oppression rather than collaboration for mutual benefit. He suggests that the zeal with which people defend their beliefs creates factions that hinder collective progress and understanding.
In practice
This quote could be used in a debate on the impact of religion in politics.
I go on the principle that a public debt is a public curse and in a republican government more than in any other.
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.
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.
The advice nearest to my heart and deepest in my convictions is that the Union of the States be cherished and perpetuated.
Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
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.
Women must write through their bodies, they must invent the impregnable language that will wreck partitions, classes, and rhetorics, regulations and codes, they must submerge, cut through, get beyond the ultimate reverse-discourse, including the one that laughs at the very idea of pronouncing the word "silence"...In one another we will never be lacking.
When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.
There's a phenomenology of being sick, one that depends on temperament, personal history, and the culture which we live in.
If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.
I don't write about good and evil with this enormous dichotomy. I write about people. I write about people doing the kinds of things that people do.
If we are the greatest nation the sun ever shone upon, it would seem to be mainly because we have been able to goad our wage-earners to this pitch of frenzy.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.