Democracy generally monopolizes and concentrates power.
LORD ACTONFanaticism in religion is the alliance of the passions she condemns with the dogmas she professes.
More Lord Acton Quotes
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Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.
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Do not turn yourself from an end into a means-one does not justify the other.
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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.
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The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority.
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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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Judge talent at its best and character at its worst.
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Fanaticism in religion is the alliance of the passions she condemns with the dogmas she professes.
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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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The test of liberty is the position and security of minorities.
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The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. ~ Every class is unfit to govern … Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.
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There should be a law to the People besides its own will.
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Ink was not invented to express our real feelings.
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History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.
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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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Before God, there is neither Greek nor barbarian, neither rich nor poor, and the slave is as good as his master, for by birth all men are free; they are citizens of the universal commonwealth which embraces all the world, brethren of one family, and children of God.
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There is not a more perilous or immoral habit of mind than the sanctifying of success.
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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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The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern: every class is unfit to govern.
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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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Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.
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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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Liberty is the prevention of control by others.
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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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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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A convinced man differs from a prejudiced man as an honest man from a liar.
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Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.
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