Truth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history.
LORD ACTONEvery thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.
More Lord Acton Quotes
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The common vice of democracy is disregard for morality.
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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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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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At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own; and this association, which is always dangerous, has sometimes been disastrous.
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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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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 passion for power over others can never cease to threaten mankind, and is always sure of finding new and unforseen allies in continuing its martyrology.
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The test of liberty is the position and security of minorities.
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When the last of the Reformers died, religion, instead of emancipating the nations, had become an excuse for the criminal art of despots. Calvin preached, and Bellarmine lectured; but Machiavelli reigned.
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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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When you perceive a truth, look for the balancing truth.
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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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There should be a law to the People besides its own will.
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No public character has ever stood the revelation of private utterance and correspondence.
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Though 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.
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Political differences essentially depend on disagreement in moral principles.
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The long term versus the short term argument is one used by losers.
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A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times.
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Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.
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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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The true guide of our conduct is no outward authority, but the voice of God, who comes down to dwell in our souls, who knows all our thoughts, to whom are owing all the truth we know, and all the good we do; for vice is voluntary, and virtue comes from the grace of the heavenly spirit within.
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Feudalism made land the measure and the master of all things.
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Do not turn yourself from an end into a means-one does not justify the other.
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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
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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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