James Madison

"The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."

"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."

"A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them."

"A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person."

"A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people."

"All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree."

"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood."

"Let me recommend the best medicine in the world: a long journey, at a mild season, through a pleasant country, in easy stages."

"Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power."

"The capacity of the female mind for studies of the highest order cannot be doubted, having been sufficiently illustrated by its works of genius, of erudition, and of science."

"The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of money."

"The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted."

"To the press alone, chequered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression."

"What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support?"

"Whenever a youth is ascertained to possess talents meriting an education which his parents cannot afford, he should be carried forward at the public expense."

"Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions."