If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation.
LORD ACTONLiberty is the prevention of control by others. This requires self-control and, therefore, religious and spiritual influences; education, knowledge, well-being.
More Lord Acton Quotes
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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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No public character has ever stood the revelation of private utterance and correspondence.
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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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Official truth is not actual truth.
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The finest opportunity ever given to the world was thrown away because the passion of equality made vain the hope for freedom.
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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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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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To develop and perfect and arm conscience is the great achievement of history.
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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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Do not turn yourself from an end into a means-one does not justify the other.
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I have reached the end of my time, and have hardly come to the beginning of my task.
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Though oppression may give rise to violent and repeated outbreaks, like the convulsions of a man in pain, it cannot mature a settled purpose and plan of regeneration, unless a new notion of happiness is joined to the sense of present evil.
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Piety sometimes gives birth to scruples, and faith to superstition, when they are not directed by wisdom and knowledge.
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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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Judge talent at its best and character at its worst.
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Authority that does not exist for Liberty is not authority but force.
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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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The strong man with the dagger is followed by the weak man with the sponge.
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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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Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
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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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Be not content with the best book; seek sidelights from the others; have no favourites.
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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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History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.
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. It is the delicate fruit of a mature civilization; and scarcely a century has passed since nations, that knew the meaning of the term, resolved to be free.
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