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Be generous before you are just. Do not temper mercy with justice.

Lord Acton

To develop and perfect and arm conscience is the great achievement of history.
LORD ACTON

Achievement Conscience Develop Great History Perfect
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

Action Class Interest Men Particular Party Public Right
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.
LORD ACTON

Concentration Control Frequently Hand Men Mentality Peace Power Remember
Authority that does not exist for Liberty is not authority but force.
LORD ACTON

Authority Exist Force Liberty
Socialism easily accepts despotism. It requires the strongest execution of power — power sufficient to interfere with property.
LORD ACTON

Accepting Deposition Execution Power Requires Socialism Strongest Sufficient
Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime.
LORD ACTON

Common Crime Deed Good Liberty Motive Next
Official truth is not actual truth.
LORD ACTON

Actually Official Truth
There are many things the government cant do, many good purposes it must renounce. It must leave them to the enterprise of others. It cannot feed the people. It cannot enrich the people. It cannot teach the people. It cannot convert the people.
LORD ACTON

Enterprise Good Government Leave Many People Purpose Renounce
The will of the people cannot make just that which is unjust.
LORD ACTON

Make People Power Unjust Will
I have reached the end of my time, and have hardly come to the beginning of my task.
LORD ACTON

Begining Come End Hardly Task Time
Political differences essentially depend on disagreement in moral principles.
LORD ACTON

Differences Disagreement Essential Moral Political Principles
The science of politics is the one science that is deposited by the streams of history, like the grains of gold in the sand of a river; and the knowledge of the past, the record of truths revealed by experience, is eminently practical, as an instrument of action and a power that goes to making the future.
LORD ACTON

Gold Grainm Stream Knowledge Past Politics River Rivers Sand Science
Fanaticism in religion is the alliance of the passions she condemns with the dogmas she professes.
LORD ACTON

Alliances Dogma Fanaticism Passion Professes Religious
The true natural check on absolute democracy is the federal system, which limits the central government by the powers reserved, and the state governments by the powers they have ceded.
LORD ACTON

Bnaturem Check Central Democracy Government Limit Power Reserve Stage True
Ink was not invented to express our real feelings.
LORD ACTON

Express Feeling Ink Inverted Real
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.
LORD ACTON

Democracies Force Fraud Majority Party Prevaiding Rule Succeed Tyranny

Be generous before you are just. Do not temper mercy with justice.

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Be generous before you are just. Do not temper mercy with justice.

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