Piety sometimes gives birth to scruples, and faith to superstition, when they are not directed by wisdom and knowledge.
LORD ACTONGreat men are almost always bad men.
More Lord Acton Quotes
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Character is tested by true sentiments more than by conduct. A man is seldom better than his word.
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Liberty and good government do not exclude each other; and there are excellent reasons why they should go together.
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Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.
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In every age its (liberty’s) 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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Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.
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Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority…
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The test of liberty is the position and security of minorities.
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The strong man with the dagger is followed by the weak man with the sponge.
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History, to be above evasion or dispute, must stand on documents, not on opinions.
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If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation.
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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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At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities.
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The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.
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History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.
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The principle of the Inquisition was murderous. . . . The popes were not only murderers in the great style, but they also made murder a legal basis of the Christian Church and a condition of salvation.
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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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In England Parliament is above the law. In America the law is above Congress.
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Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.
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Democracy generally monopolizes and concentrates power.
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Be generous before you are just. Do not temper mercy with justice.
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Those who have more power are liable to sin more; no theorem in geometry is more certain than this.
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The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.
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It is easier to find people fit to govern themselves than people fit to govern others.
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Liberty is the prevention of control by others.
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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.
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A convinced man differs from a prejudiced man as an honest man from a liar.
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