The finest opportunity ever given to the world was thrown away because the passion of equality made vain the hope for freedom.
LORD ACTONA wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times.
More Lord Acton Quotes
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The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority.
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The possession of unlimited power corrodes the conscience, hardens the heart, and confounds the understanding.
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Be generous before you are just. Do not temper mercy with justice.
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Progress, the religion of those who have none.
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In England Parliament is above the law. In America the law is above Congress.
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A people averse to the institution of private property is without the first elements of freedom
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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.
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Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority…
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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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False principles, which correspond with the bad as well as with the just aspirations of mankind, are a normal and necessary element in the social life of nations.
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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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Feudalism made land the measure and the master of all things.
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Truth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history.
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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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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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Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.
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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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There is not a more perilous or immoral habit of mind than the sanctifying of success.
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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.
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The true guide of our conduct is no outward authority, but the voice of God, who comes down to dwell in our souls, who knows all our thoughts, to whom are owing all the truth we know, and all the good we do; for vice is voluntary, and virtue comes from the grace of the heavenly spirit within.
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Liberty is the prevention of control by others. This requires self-control and, therefore, religious and spiritual influences; education, knowledge, well-being.
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History, to be above evasion or dispute, must stand on documents, not on opinions.
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Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.
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Liberty is the prevention of control by others.
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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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The minority can seldom resist. But from the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason.
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