Liberty, 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 ACTONWhen 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.
More Lord Acton Quotes
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Feudalism made land the measure and the master of all things.
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Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.
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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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If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation.
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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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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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No public character has ever stood the revelation of private utterance and correspondence.
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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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Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime.
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Political differences essentially depend on disagreement in moral principles.
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Official truth is not actual truth.
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In every age its 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.
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Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.
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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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There should be a law to the People besides its own will.
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