Learn as much by writing as by reading.
LORD ACTONThere are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion.
More Lord Acton Quotes
-
-
The long term versus the short term argument is one used by losers.
LORD ACTON -
Liberty has not only enemies which it conquers, but perfidious friends, who rob the fruits of its victories: Absolute democracy, socialism.
LORD ACTON -
Fanaticism in religion is the alliance of the passions she condemns with the dogmas she professes.
LORD ACTON -
There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men.
LORD ACTON -
Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.
LORD ACTON -
There is not a more perilous or immoral habit of mind than the sanctifying of success.
LORD ACTON -
The minority can seldom resist. But from the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason.
LORD ACTON -
The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority.
LORD ACTON -
If some great catastrophe is not announced every morning, we feel a certain void. Nothing in the paper today, we sigh.
LORD ACTON -
The passion for power over others can never cease to threaten mankind, and is always sure of finding new and unforseen allies in continuing its martyrology.
LORD ACTON -
History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.
LORD ACTON -
The mills of God grind slowly.
LORD ACTON -
Great men are almost always bad men.
LORD ACTON -
It is easier to find people fit to govern themselves than people fit to govern others.
LORD ACTON -
A public man has no right to let his actions be determined by particular interests. He does the same thing as a judge who accepts a bribe. Like a judge he must consider what is right, not what is advantageous to a party or class.
LORD ACTON -
A generous spirit prefers that his country should be poor, and weak, and of no account, but free, rather than powerful, prosperous, and enslaved.
LORD ACTON -
Every class is unfit to govern.
LORD ACTON -
A liberal is only a bundle of prejudices until he has mastered, has understood, experienced the philosophy of Conservatism.
LORD ACTON -
There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion.
LORD ACTON -
At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own; and this association, which is always dangerous, has sometimes been disastrous.
LORD ACTON -
A convinced man differs from a prejudiced man as an honest man from a liar.
LORD ACTON -
There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.
LORD ACTON -
Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority…
LORD ACTON -
A people averse to the institution of private property is without the first elements of freedom
LORD ACTON -
I have reached the end of my time, and have hardly come to the beginning of my task.
LORD ACTON -
Socialism easily accepts despotism. It requires the strongest execution of power — power sufficient to interfere with property.
LORD ACTON