Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority…
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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It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.
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There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men.
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Democracy generally monopolizes and concentrates power.
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But when modern absolutism arose, it laid claim to everything on behalf of the sovereign power….
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Be generous before you are just. Do not temper mercy with justice.
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Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end…liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition…
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Fanaticism in religion is the alliance of the passions she condemns with the dogmas she professes.
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The 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.
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The mills of God grind slowly.
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Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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History, to be above evasion or dispute, must stand on documents, not on opinions.
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Moral precepts are constant through the ages and not obedient to circumstances.
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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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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.
LORD ACTON