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.
LORD ACTONA wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times.
More Lord Acton Quotes
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It is easier to find people fit to govern themselves than people fit to govern others.
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Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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Ink was not invented to express our real feelings.
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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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Learn as much by writing as by reading.
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Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.
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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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Those who have more power are liable to sin more; no theorem in geometry is more certain than this.
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Progress, the religion of those who have none.
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The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. ~ Every class is unfit to govern … Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.
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Be generous before you are just. Do not temper mercy with justice.
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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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Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.
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The finest opportunity ever given to the world was thrown away because the passion of equality made vain the hope for freedom.
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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.
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