Be not content with the best book; seek sidelights from the others; have no favourites.
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
-
-
History provides neither compensation for suffering nor penalties for wrong.
LORD ACTON -
Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.
LORD ACTON -
. It is the delicate fruit of a mature civilization; and scarcely a century has passed since nations, that knew the meaning of the term, resolved to be free.
LORD ACTON -
The test of liberty is the position and security of minorities.
LORD ACTON -
The 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 ACTON -
The long term versus the short term argument is one used by losers.
LORD ACTON -
Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.
LORD ACTON -
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.
LORD ACTON -
In every age its (liberty’s) 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
LORD ACTON -
Truth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history.
LORD ACTON -
False 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 ACTON -
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
LORD ACTON -
Great men are almost always bad men.
LORD ACTON -
The mills of God grind slowly.
LORD ACTON -
A public man has no right to let his actions be determined by particular interests. He does the same thing as a judge who accepts a bribe. Like a judge he must consider what is right, not what is advantageous to a party or class.
LORD ACTON