Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.
LORD ACTONIn England Parliament is above the law. In America the law is above Congress.
More Lord Acton Quotes
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A liberal is only a bundle of prejudices until he has mastered, has understood, experienced the philosophy of Conservatism.
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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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Liberty and good government do not exclude each other; and there are excellent reasons why they should go together.
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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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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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Do not turn yourself from an end into a means-one does not justify the other.
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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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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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I have reached the end of my time, and have hardly come to the beginning of my task.
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History, to be above evasion or dispute, must stand on documents, not on opinions.
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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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Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right of being able to do what we ought.
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The long term versus the short term argument is one used by losers.
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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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The will of the people cannot make just that which is unjust.
LORD ACTON






