The will of the people cannot make just that which is unjust.
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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Liberty and good government do not exclude each other; and there are excellent reasons why they should go together.
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When the revolutionary theory of government began to prevail, and Church and State found that they were educating for opposite ends and in a contradictory spirit, it became necessary to remove children entirely from the influence of religion.
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At 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.
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Political differences essentially depend on disagreement in moral principles.
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No public character has ever stood the revelation of private utterance and correspondence.
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Men cannot be made good by the state, but they can easily be made bad. Morality depends on liberty.
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Authority that does not exist for Liberty is not authority but force.
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It is easier to find people fit to govern themselves than people fit to govern others.
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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…
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Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
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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
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Liberty has not only enemies which it conquers, but perfidious friends, who rob the fruits of its victories: Absolute democracy, socialism.
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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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Judge talent at its best and character at its worst.
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Live both in the future and the past. Who does not live in the past does not live in the future.
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Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.
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Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.
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Fanaticism in religion is the alliance of the passions she condemns with the dogmas she professes.
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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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Be generous before you are just. Do not temper mercy with justice.
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Feudalism made land the measure and the master of all things.
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But when modern absolutism arose, it laid claim to everything on behalf of the sovereign power….
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The 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.
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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.
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There is not a more perilous or immoral habit of mind than the sanctifying of success.
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Do not turn yourself from an end into a means-one does not justify the other.
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