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Progress, the religion of those who have none.

Lord Acton

We are not sure we are right until we have made the best case possible for those who are wrong.
LORD ACTON

Case Made Possible Sure Thing Wrong
Do not turn yourself from an end into a means-one does not justify the other.
LORD ACTON

Doe End Justify Mean Other
There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men.
LORD ACTON

Ablest Defender Error Failing Men Monstrous
When the last of the Reformers died, religion, instead of emancipating the nations, had become an excuse for the criminal art of despots. Calvin preached, and Bellarmine lectured; but Machiavelli reigned.
LORD ACTON

Art Criminal Despot Die Emancipate Excuse Last Nation Preacher Reformer
History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.
LORD ACTON

Burden History Illumination Memories Soul
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

Democracies Force Fraud Majority Party Prevaiding Rule Succeed Tyranny
Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.
LORD ACTON

Always Corruption Despotic Morality Power
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

Majority Minorities Oppressed People Play Worse
I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they do no wrong.
LORD ACTON

Accept Do Favorable Judge King Men Pope Power Presumption Unlike Wrong
When you perceive a truth, look for the balancing truth.
LORD ACTON

Balance Look Perceive Truth
No public character has ever stood the revelation of private utterance and correspondence.
LORD ACTON

Character Correspondance Public Revelation Stood Utterance
There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.
LORD ACTON

Corrupt Holder Office Political Power
Men cannot be made good by the state, but they can easily be made bad. Morality depends on liberty.
LORD ACTON

Bad Easily Good Made Men State
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

Gold Grainm Stream Knowledge Past Politics River Rivers Sand Science
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
LORD ACTON

Ignorance Liberty Progress Strong Superstition Wisdom
Fanaticism in religion is the alliance of the passions she condemns with the dogmas she professes.
LORD ACTON

Alliances Dogma Fanaticism Passion Professes Religious

Progress, the religion of those who have none.

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Progress, the religion of those who have none.

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