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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.

Lord Acton

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
LORD ACTON

Absolute Corrupt Exercise Influence Men Power Tend
Liberty has not only enemies which it conquers, but perfidious friends, who rob the fruits of its victories: Absolute democracy, socialism.
LORD ACTON

Democracy Enemy Friend Fruit Liberty Socialism Victory
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.
LORD ACTON

Assign Best Central Club Democracy Federalism Government Power
The common vice of democracy is disregard for morality.
LORD ACTON

Common Democracy Morality Vice Vices
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end…liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition…
LORD ACTON

Benefit Class Higher Liberty Mean Men Political
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.
LORD ACTON

Age Best Conquest Crave Enemies Every Food Ignorance Man Poor Progress
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

Associate Association Country Friend Minorities Person Racem People Sincere Themselves Time Triumph
There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.
LORD ACTON

Corrupt Holder Office Political Power
Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.
LORD ACTON

Future Government Literature Present Rule
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
No public character has ever stood the revelation of private utterance and correspondence.
LORD ACTON

Character Correspondance Public Revelation Stood Utterance
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.
LORD ACTON

Almost Always Authority Great Influence Men Stillmore
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

Account Country Ensalve Generous Powerful Spirit
When you perceive a truth, look for the balancing truth.
LORD ACTON

Balance Look Perceive Truth
Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.
LORD ACTON

Authority Essential Limitation
Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right of being able to do what we ought.
LORD ACTON

Able Being Do Liberty Ought Power Right

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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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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Popular Authors

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