All Quotes

"A letter sent by James Madison on November 25, 1820, to the Marquis de Lafayette discussed the debate over admitting Missouri as a slave state and the confusion caused by the different rights of "free people of color" in various states. He deplored the "various disqualifications which degrade them from the rank & rights of white persons". Dismayed by the growing divisiveness in the nation, which he had helped to found, Madison added, "All these perplexities develop more and more, the dreadful fruitfulness of the original sin of the African trade"."

"Madison was always temperate. One may describe him as the exegete of the American democracy, and Jefferson as its poet. In modern terminology, Madison would be labeled a middle-of-the-road liberal, and Jefferson a radical."

"Madison, like many of the other Founders, was acutely aware of the injustice of slavery and saw it as one form of the oppression that their innovative approach to government as to eliminate."

"Being good gentlemen of the Enlightenment, the Founders thought that the demise of slavery would come about naturally. Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, all believed that somehow slavery would disappear."

"The Union was and is perpetual. The founders intended it so. Madison's letter to Hamilton, 'The Constitution requires an adoption in toto, and for ever', during the New York ratification debates demonstrate that decisively. But on an even more profound scale, the ratification process itself demonstrates that the founders intended the permanence and strength of the Union. They had had it with powerful states. That's why the founders stated in Article VII that ratification had to happen in special conventions, not the state legislatures. If the founders had left it to the state legislatures, those legislatures would have rejected the document out of hand. But the special ratifying conventions were different. They were composed of delegates elected by 'We The People' of each state, not the state itself. In addition, the states liberalized voting rules by getting rid of the property qualifications. This was a special one-time-only thing in order to ensure the broadest possible participation to select delegates in order to make it as democratic as the eighteenth century mindset would allow. In the north, five states even allowed blacks the right to vote. When the Constitution says 'We the People' that's not just a rhetorical flourish. That's a description of the nature of the Union."

"In his mind, at least, one thing was settled. Billey was no longer a slave, but a human being. In his own upheaval, the principle of freedom could no longer be confined to whites. It was a right for all human beings, black and white alike."

"Madison could not escape the specter of slavery and the risk that it would sever the American union. As a young politician, Madison struggled with the contradiction between slavery and America's revolutionary ideals. His ideals ... Madison had not absorbed the race prejudices of his time and place. He never denied that the African Americans he owned were human beings like him ... Madison accepted emancipated blacks on an equal footing ... When a free black man brought a message to Montpelier nine years later, James and Dolley invited the man to join the company for dinner and evening conversation. The visitor spent the night at Montpelier. After breakfast, he borrowed a horse to continue his journey."

"All the leading Founders affirmed on many occasions that blacks are created equal to whites and that slavery is wrong."

"Fastening on Anti-Federalist criticisms that the Constitution lacked a clear articulation of guaranteed rights, Madison proposed amendments that emphasized the rights of individuals rather than the rights of states, an ingenious move that led to cries that these amendments—now known as the “Bill of Rights”—were a mere diversion."

"Madison went on in 1789 to become the dominant member of the new House of Representatives. He not only helped President George Washington organize the executive branch, he was also the person most responsible for producing the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, which became the Bill of Rights. One problem that Madison couldn't deal with was slavery. Although he believed it was “the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man,” he realized the political opposition to abolition was too great, and he hoped against hope that time would solve the problem."

"The sun's not yellow, it's chicken."

"A voice like sand and glue."

"All the money you made will never buy back your soul."

"Money doesn't talk, it swears"

"Some day everything is gonna be different, when I paint my masterpiece."

"They tell you "Time is money," as if your life was worth its weight in gold."

"When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain?"

"Truth is an arrow, and the gate is narrow that it passes through."

"I been down on the bottom of a whirlpool of lies"

"Don't even hear the murmur of a prayer. It's not dark yet, but it's getting there."

"I could hold you for a million years"

"May you build a ladder to the stars and climb on every rung. May your song always be sung, May you stay forever young."

"Do you ever wonder just what God requires? You think he's just an errand boy to satisfy your wandering desires."

"I think women rule the world, and that no man has ever done anything that a woman either hasn't allowed him to do or encouraged him to do."

"Counterfeit philosophies have polluted all of your thoughts; Karl Marx has got you by the throat, and Henry Kissinger's got you tied up into knots."

"Anything I can sing, I call a song. Anything I can't sing, I call a poem."

"Because Dickens and Dostoyevsky and Woody Guthrie were telling their stories much better than I ever could, I decided to stick to my own mind."

"There's no black and white, left and right to me anymore; there's only up and down and down is very close to the ground. And I'm trying to go up without thinking about anything trivial such as politics. They has got nothing to do with it. I'm thinking about the general people and when they get hurt."

"I am a writer an a singer of the words I write I am no speaker nor any politician an my songs speak for me because I write them in the confinement of my own mind an have t cope with no one except my own self."

"do Not create anything, it will be misinterpreted. it will not change. it will follow you the rest of your life."

"a poem is a naked person . . . some people say that I am a poet"

"Morality has nothing in common with politics."

"Yes, and how many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died?"

"He's a pinboy. He also wears suspenders. He's a real person. You know him, but not by that name... I saw him come into the room one night and he looked like a camel. He proceeded to put his eyes in his pocket. I asked this guy who he was and he said, "That's Mr. Jones." Then I asked this cat, "Doesn't he do anything but put his eyes in his pocket?" And he told me, "He puts his nose on the ground." It's all there, it's a true story."

"You don't necessarily have to write to be a poet. Some people work in gas stations and they're poets. I don't call myself a poet because I don't like the word. I'm a trapeze artist."

"I find it easy to write songs. I been writing songs for a long time and the words to the songs aren't written out just for the paper; they're written as you can read it, you dig. If you take whatever there is to the song away—the beat, the melody—I could still recite it. I see nothing wrong with songs you can't do that with either—songs that, if you took the beat and the melody away, they wouldn't stand up because they're not supposed to do that, you know. Songs are songs."

"I accept chaos. I am not sure whether it accepts me. I know there are some people terrified of the bomb, but there are others terrified to be seen carrying a Modern Screen magazine. Experience teaches that silence terrifies the most."

"Reporter: How many people who labor in the same musical vineyard in which you toil - how many are protest singers? That is, people who use their music, and use the songs to protest the, uh, social state in which we live today: the matter of war, the matter of crime, or whatever it might be. Bob Dylan: Um...how many? Reporter: Yes. How many? Bob Dylan: Uh, I think there's about, uh...136. Reporter: You say about 136, or you mean exactly 136? Bob Dylan: Uh, it's either 136 or 142."

"Bob Dylan: I do know what my songs are about. Playboy: And what's that? Bob Dylan: Oh, some are about four minutes; some are about five, and some, believe it or not, are about eleven or twelve."

"Colleges are like old-age homes; except for the fact that more people die in colleges."

"I don't believe you! You're a liar! ... Play it fucking loud!"

"Keep a good head and always carry a light bulb."

"God, I'm glad I'm not me."

"You have to be let alone to really accomplish anything."

"I used to think that myself and my songs were the same thing. But I don't believe that any more. There's myself and there's my song, which I hope is everybody's song."

"My songs always sound a lot better in person than they do on the record."

"Greed and lust I can understand, but I can't understand the values of definition and confinement. Definition destroys. Besides, there's nothing definite in this world."

"Ron Rosenbaum: Why are you doing what you're doing? Bob Dylan: [Pause] Because I don't know anything else to do. I'm good at it. Ron Rosenbaum: How would you describe "it"? Bob Dylan: I'm an artist. I try to create art."

"I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I'll die like a poet."

"Art is the perpetual motion of illusion. The highest purpose of art is to inspire. What else can you do? What else can you do for anyone but inspire them?"