A generous spirit prefers that his country should be poor, and weak, and of no account, but free, rather than powerful, prosperous, and enslaved.
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.
More Lord Acton Quotes
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The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority.
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Ink was not invented to express our real feelings.
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Far 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.
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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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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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There should be a law to the People besides its own will.
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Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.
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Federalism is the best curb on democracy. [It] assigns limited powers to the central government. Thereby all power is limited. It excludes absolute power of the majority.
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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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Official truth is not actual truth.
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Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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History provides neither compensation for suffering nor penalties for wrong.
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Great men are almost always bad men.
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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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Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
LORD ACTON