Here's what he should have said:
"We should construct a society under the forms of which, (that is, with well accepted memes, such that) the strongest faction is always put in check by the temporary alliance of the other factions, where in they can be made querulous by the strongest merely acting like they are fuckin-in-charge."

Boy that sure doesn't sound like a Madison quote. I thought his thing was that where there's many factions, the weaker ones band together to limit the strength of the strongest. The quote above... ". . . the stronger [...] oppress the weaker . . . should end this way . . . . "may as truly be said to be A GOVERNMENT."

In an effort to see if this quote was sarcasm or a deathbed conversion (it was the former) I learned he was a supporter of eugenics. As was Woodrow Wilson and just about all progressives of that era.
He was impatient with the gradual Fabian Socialism and wrote supportive essays about Mussolini, Hitler as well as Stalin.
Fabians believe: "socialism can be brought about in a perfectly constitutional manner by democratic institutions."
I think an important lesson about "intellectuals" can be seen in his refusal after the war, to condemn his heroes, Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin after it became abundantly clear they were supremely evil...
"Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it."
-- Thomas Sowell

"If our Trade be taxed, why not our Lands,
or Produce in short, everything we possess?"
Oh wait. You do that too.
Never mind.

"You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."
~ Rahm Emanuel

I think he is presenting the great appeal of socialism, not making a case for it.
Walt

I'm sorry guys. I don't appreciate this statement. And that's all it is. What does it mean to protect someone else's freedom? Surely those who wish to deprive someone his freedom is absolutely convinced that he is a criminal. Or do you think that criminals should not have their freedom deprived.
Why do you guys think every quote that shows up here is worthy of praise. I would not be surprise if Clarance Darrow took all of 4 seconds to think up this platitude. For example what does the phrase "... in this world" mean? It just fills space needed to make the sentence sound important.

Thank you Robert of St. Emilion.
I have a question for Anonymous of USN. For what purpose did the 60,000 Americans die in Viet Nam? Glory. That's all.

This is a wonderful aphorism. Ten Stars indeed. I looked at Susan's Wikipedia entry. Not much of a career at all. It seems her purpose in life, her religion is atheism. She needs a hobby, er something. But this quote might be enough to be life-time achievement. It's that good. Well, I think so.

The tendency we have to shift the cause of any suffering to someone, some firm, or some class of people, might be one of the most fundamental concepts of human nature... up there with self-interest, sex drive and retaliation. It's a drive that is so strong, when it's in action we never think to question why we feel that way. For some people it may be the strongest of human drives; the purpose of their life. For them, it is what turns inequality into envy and envy into legislation.

I think the Editor should consider removing this quote or putting in asterisks or something, because I cannot find it anywhere EXCEPT his listing of quotes.

That TR quote reveals how superficial he was as a thinker. He is famous as a doer. The real experts on lying are Clair and Francis Underwood; well their writers anyway. The lesson I learned from that TV show was that ambitious politicians lie; only the stupid rely on honesty. The stupid fall into the habit of telling the truth because there's fewer things to remember. Their laziness is evidence of their lack of ambition. In addition to being smart those that repeatedly profit from lying must work in an environment where those that are served arent the ones that pay; arent the ones that feel the sacrifice for each decision. Whereas, when producers know that their customers have a choice that is directly associated with a cost, promises are less significant than reputation, and unlike a mere promise, reputation can become retribution.

" . . . being liable only for the use of that right." should be followed by . . .Because every single act of government is carried out with force, governments have the unattainable obligation to never be wrong. The continuing question society must face is are the unavoidable wrongs worth whatever it is that government provides? But to answer that, we must find out if what government provides cant be provided in some other way.

Good point about ranking of rights . There is also the question of conflict of ideologies; ideologies whose purpose is to capture the monopoly on the legal use of force.

Oh great. Another aphorism for the liberals to thrown in our face: " . . . the real welfare of the great body of the people, is the supreme object . . ."
That along with the Constitution's " . . . and promote the general Welfare . . ."

I read all of your comments. Some good thoughts there, most better than this Menkin quote. I give this one of Menkin a thumbs down. Since when did the South become recognized as being more "of the, by the, and for the people?"
The Civil War was wrong not because the south was right. The sacrificing of 620,000 lives in the Civil War was not in vain. Lincoln demonstrated with that sacrifice that the phrase right to alter or to abolish" implies an obligation on the part of the government to go to war with any group who claims that right. He went further. With the 620,000 deaths, he guaranteed that if you lose the war to alter or to abolish", you will get a 14th amendment and other acts which ratchets up the power of the government that needs altering or abolishing. War always gives more power to the government; even over the people on the side that wins.

Wait a minute. That is so wrong. The assumption here is that we are not fools or knaves. I think the important point about freedom of speech is that we can indeed be fools and knaves and are better off with freedom. As Hayek made famous; a thousand individuals "acting" in an environment of freedom makes a society far more productive than one where the smartest man within that thousand has his decision enacted by a central authority.

Excellent points Mike of Norwalk and especially Ray McCoy. I like the observation about ... " If books are as dangerous as battles in warfare, then it is incumbent on some to guard against the danger." Damn that's potent. Did you make that up Ray?
I think the justification for hobbling the government in its preemptive use of legal force, is the fact that we allow this dangerous thing, government, to exist. That is, it must have some mechanism (a revered old document, for example) to force it not to be as efficient as it could be. But as Ray observed, it is appropriate to preempt bad things by the institution of the family and I would add, the church or any other VOLUNTARY institution (that doesn't assume the mantle of the state to force its edicts). In the Pope quote above, note the assumption of the legal use of force. (Contrast that force with the force tempered by the love of each as individuals, which a bureaucracy cannot possibly have.)
Whenever you see a bumper sticker or a claim that the dark ages were dark because of who was in charge, remind all about you, please, that it was yes the church that caused the dark ages, but it was when it was the state. Religion, when it assumes the power of the state, claims a power that God doesn’t even have: the ability to deny free will. .

Mike,
Thanks for the translation; it is very clear and very right. With its triple negative and antique wording, I couldn't understand Madison even after several readings. This is one those LibertyQuotes where the comments, all of them, are better than the original.
From what I gathered in the comments section this Madison quote has to do with how we get the legal monopoly on coercive force to be least oppressive and yet still be the unquestioned highest authority in the land. Eisenhower and Madison, I suspect, felt that a government would be wise to NOT force underground any extreme views on all the different ways government should use its force against its citizens. With complete freedom of speech we can find a compromise between a huge military, and a huge welfare state. Between control over schools and control of banking. Between subsidizing industries that employ the most voters or subsidizing the best art and music.
I think the big mistake the Soviet Union made was thinking that you can't grant your subjects freedom of speech and have an all encompassing state. Boy we sure proved them wrong.

Mike of Norwalk, a little help here. What do you suppose "have" and "have not" means, when it comes to the concept of the self? I did a quick scan of the Wikipedia on the self and there's no reference to the phrase "have not".
So I went to another source of aphorisms and found this one from Hoffer...
Those who lack the capacity to achieve much in an atmosphere of freedom will clamor for power."
That is clear as a bell. I'm going chock this up to a mistake on the part of who ever gathers these aphorisms. He probably left out too much context.

Mike,
You summarized it quite well, but the irony would be lost on those you listed; for they would think manipulating people is what they live for. And their logic would be as follows. Children are indeed "objects without wills of their own". Some people never grow up. Those are the special ones; those whose welfare is the measure of how well we took care of them. Among them are the veterans with PTSD, the destitute elderly, the homeless, the blacks and others who are not quite fully human.

I just read the Wikipedia article on him. At no time in his career did he recant his extreme and violent view that force must be used for equality. He even defended the Russian use of star chambers for killing those that aren't pulling their weight.
The most interesting thing about Shaw is how intelligent a man can be seduced by socialism. If his views weren't so violently Stalinist (not just Marxist) one might be troubled by the fact that so many intellectuals are Democrats. But here with Shaw is a clear example of how brilliance, has nothing at all to do with wisdom.

This aphorism is a classic example of a philosophical tautology. Who is going object to the claim that "it is not the critic who counts."
This essay is typical of a bullshit politician who claims in words ever so strongly that being bad is bad.
Walt

Policemen, even off duty, do not get tickets. They don't even have to ask to be let off. They keep their badge next to their license so when pulled over . . . This is just one example where there isn't rampant abuse of privilege. Senators padding their six figure incomes are a rarity. You conservatives drive me nuts with "waste, fraud and abuse" being the reason you want reduced government. Those things can be fixed. Even when not discovered, future abuse is not less likely caught. This problem is small compared to the impact of the sum total of all their good intentions. Each page of their legislation on its own seems to concentrate the good and diffuse the bad. But the accumulated effect of 170,000 pages a year of new legislation, hobbles the productive part of the economy and reduces the incentives of the less productive.

Truism indeed Mike.
And a waste of time in reading. It is glittering prose that says nothing more than... Wishing to be in charge of raising his own kids and wishing to spend his own money has a very long tradition. It is bad if these wishes are completely prevented. Duh.
C.S. Lewis was no libertarian. No one in England in his time saw anything wrong with the state directing all aspects of the culture. What C.S. Lewis wanted when he said the above is for the STATE to make sure that no bad people take all his money and the STATE teaches his kids the way he would.

Mike,
That has got to be the most worthless quote I have ever read. Give it a zero. It's only value, if any, is to show the difference between a truism or quote and an aphorism. A truism has so few words, it can only describe a fact the reader already knows. There's no logic, no lesson; no reason to read it. An aphorism is several sentences; much longer than a mere quote. It tries to teach or convert the reader.
If you go to Google to look for libertarian, even conservative aphorisms you find lots of collections; that's how I found liberty-tree. You will find not a single collection of a liberal or progressive theme "aphorisms." But if you Google "quotes" there's lots of them.