Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.
LORD ACTONThe principle of the Inquisition was murderous. . . . The popes were not only murderers in the great style, but they also made murder a legal basis of the Christian Church and a condition of salvation.
More Lord Acton Quotes
-
-
Official truth is not actual truth.
LORD ACTON -
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 -
A liberal is only a bundle of prejudices until he has mastered, has understood, experienced the philosophy of Conservatism.
LORD ACTON -
I have reached the end of my time, and have hardly come to the beginning of my task.
LORD ACTON -
Be not content with the best book; seek sidelights from the others; have no favourites.
LORD ACTON -
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 -
Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.
LORD ACTON -
If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation.
LORD ACTON -
The minority can seldom resist. But from the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason.
LORD ACTON -
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 -
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
LORD ACTON -
There is not a more perilous or immoral habit of mind than the sanctifying of success.
LORD ACTON -
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 -
It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.
LORD ACTON -
Moral precepts are constant through the ages and not obedient to circumstances.
LORD ACTON -
There should be a law to the People besides its own will.
LORD ACTON -
Liberty has not only enemies which it conquers, but perfidious friends, who rob the fruits of its victories: Absolute democracy, socialism.
LORD ACTON -
The finest opportunity ever given to the world was thrown away because the passion of equality made vain the hope for freedom.
LORD ACTON -
Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right of being able to do what we ought.
LORD ACTON -
History, to be above evasion or dispute, must stand on documents, not on opinions.
LORD ACTON -
Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.
LORD ACTON -
Live both in the future and the past. Who does not live in the past does not live in the future.
LORD ACTON -
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.
LORD ACTON -
Liberty is the prevention of control by others.
LORD ACTON -
It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in the masses which, if it is called into play.
LORD ACTON -
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
LORD ACTON