The possession of unlimited power corrodes the conscience, hardens the heart, and confounds the understanding.
LORD ACTONThe science of politics is the one science that is deposited by the streams of history, like the grains of gold in the sand of a river; and the knowledge of the past, the record of truths revealed by experience, is eminently practical, as an instrument of action and a power that goes to making the future.
More Lord Acton Quotes
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The test of liberty is the position and security of minorities.
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Great men are almost always bad men.
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We are not sure we are right until we have made the best case possible for those who are wrong.
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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.
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There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.
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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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Socialism easily accepts despotism. It requires the strongest execution of power — power sufficient to interfere with property.
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The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern: every class is unfit to govern.
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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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Judge talent at its best and character at its worst.
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I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they do no wrong.
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There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion.
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The will of the people cannot make just that which is unjust.
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A people averse to the institution of private property is without the first elements of freedom
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I have reached the end of my time, and have hardly come to the beginning of my task.
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