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Liberty and good government do not exclude each other; and there are excellent reasons why they should go together.

Lord Acton

Piety sometimes gives birth to scruples, and faith to superstition, when they are not directed by wisdom and knowledge.
LORD ACTON

Birth Directed Faith Giving Knowledge Piety Scruple Sometimes Superstition Wisdom
Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.
LORD ACTON

Change Creed Eternity Fail Fall Law Manner Moral Opinion Table Tablet
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
If some great catastrophe is not announced every morning, we feel a certain void. Nothing in the paper today, we sigh.
LORD ACTON

Anxiety Generous Morning Nothing Today Paper
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
There is not a more perilous or immoral habit of mind than the sanctifying of success.
LORD ACTON

Habit Mind More Perilous Sanctifying Succes
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
It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.
LORD ACTON

Bad Majority Minority Oppress
Every class is unfit to govern.
LORD ACTON

Class Unfit
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
It is easier to find people fit to govern themselves than people fit to govern others.
LORD ACTON

Easier Find Fit Govern People Themselves
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.
LORD ACTON

All Birth Children Citizen Country Free God Good Master Men Neither Poor Salve
Truth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history.
LORD ACTON

Dignity Giving History Merit Truth Worth
I have reached the end of my time, and have hardly come to the beginning of my task.
LORD ACTON

Begining Come End Hardly Task Time
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

Alike Almost Benefit Danger End Mne Object Particular Political
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

Liberty and good government do not exclude each other; and there are excellent reasons why they should go together.

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Liberty and good government do not exclude each other; and there are excellent reasons why they should go together.

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Popular Authors

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