To develop and perfect and arm conscience is the great achievement of history.
LORD ACTONTo develop and perfect and arm conscience is the great achievement of history.
LORD ACTONThough 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.
LORD ACTONIt is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.
LORD ACTONThe true natural check on absolute democracy is the federal system, which limits the central government by the powers reserved, and the state governments by the powers they have ceded.
LORD ACTONThe danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern: every class is unfit to govern.
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.
LORD ACTONIt 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 ACTONThe 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 ACTONFalse principles, which correspond with the bad as well as with the just aspirations of mankind, are a normal and necessary element in the social life of nations.
LORD ACTONLiberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime, from the sowing of the seed at Athens, 2,460 years ago, until the ripened harvest was gathered by men of our race
LORD ACTONFar from being the product of a democratic revolution and of an opposition to English institutions, the constitution of the United States was the result of a powerful reaction against democracy, and in favor of the traditions of the mother country.
LORD ACTONJudge talent at its best and character at its worst.
LORD ACTONAt all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own; and this association, which is always dangerous, has sometimes been disastrous.
LORD ACTONAnd 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 ACTONDemocracy generally monopolizes and concentrates power.
LORD ACTONDespotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.
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