The will of the people cannot make just that which is unjust.
LORD ACTONThe will of the people cannot make just that which is unjust.
LORD ACTONThe one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority.
LORD ACTONThough 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.
LORD ACTONLimitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.
LORD ACTONOpinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.
LORD ACTONEvery class is unfit to govern.
LORD ACTONLiberty, 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
LORD ACTONJudge talent at its best and character at its worst.
LORD ACTONFederalism 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 ACTONLive both in the future and the past. Who does not live in the past does not live in the future.
LORD ACTONBefore God, there is neither Greek nor barbarian, neither rich nor poor, and the slave is as good as his master, for by birth all men are free; they are citizens of the universal commonwealth which embraces all the world, brethren of one family, and children of God.
LORD ACTONIf there is any presumption, it is the other way against holders of power…power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
LORD ACTONThe strong man with the dagger is followed by the weak man with the sponge.
LORD ACTONIn 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.
LORD ACTONGovernment rules the present. Literature rules the future.
LORD ACTONThe possession of unlimited power corrodes the conscience, hardens the heart, and confounds the understanding.
LORD ACTON