Liberty is the prevention of control by others.
LORD ACTONLiberty and good government do not exclude each other; and there are excellent reasons why they should go together.
More Lord Acton Quotes
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Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
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There is not a more perilous or immoral habit of mind than the sanctifying of success.
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I have reached the end of my time, and have hardly come to the beginning of my task.
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The strong man with the dagger is followed by the weak man with the sponge.
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A convinced man differs from a prejudiced man as an honest man from a liar.
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It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.
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In every age its progress has been beset by its natural enemies, by ignorance and superstition, by lust of conquest and by love of ease, by the strong man’s craving for power, and the poor man’s craving for food.
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Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.
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Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
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Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that.
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Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime, from the sowing of the seed at Athens, 2,460 years ago, until the ripened harvest was gathered by men of our race
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Be generous before you are just. Do not temper mercy with justice.
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Authority that does not exist for Liberty is not authority but force.
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I’m not a driven businessman, but a driven artist. I never think about money. Beautiful things make money.
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The test of liberty is the position and security of minorities.
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The long term versus the short term argument is one used by losers.
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There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men.
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The finest opportunity ever given to the world was thrown away because the passion of equality made vain the hope for freedom.
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If some great catastrophe is not announced every morning, we feel a certain void. Nothing in the paper today, we sigh.
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Do not turn yourself from an end into a means-one does not justify the other.
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Federalism is the best curb on democracy. [It] assigns limited powers to the central government. Thereby all power is limited. It excludes absolute power of the majority.
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Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime.
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Political differences essentially depend on disagreement in moral principles.
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When the revolutionary theory of government began to prevail, and Church and State found that they were educating for opposite ends and in a contradictory spirit, it became necessary to remove children entirely from the influence of religion.
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Men cannot be made good by the state, but they can easily be made bad. Morality depends on liberty.
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