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 ACTONAt 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.
More Lord Acton Quotes
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No public character has ever stood the revelation of private utterance and correspondence.
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When you perceive a truth, look for the balancing truth.
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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.
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The strong man with the dagger is followed by the weak man with the sponge.
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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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A convinced man differs from a prejudiced man as an honest man from a liar.
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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.
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In every age its 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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Feudalism made land the measure and the master of all things.
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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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Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.
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It is easier to find people fit to govern themselves than people fit to govern others.
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Liberty is the prevention of control by others.
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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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There is not a more perilous or immoral habit of mind than the sanctifying of success.
LORD ACTON