Live both in the future and the past. Who does not live in the past does not live in the future.
LORD ACTONTruth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history.
More Lord Acton Quotes
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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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Official truth is not actual truth.
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A public man has no right to let his actions be determined by particular interests. He does the same thing as a judge who accepts a bribe. Like a judge he must consider what is right, not what is advantageous to a party or class.
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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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There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.
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It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in the masses which, if it is called into play.
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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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Political differences essentially depend on disagreement in moral principles.
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If some great catastrophe is not announced every morning, we feel a certain void. Nothing in the paper today, we sigh.
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Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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There is not a more perilous or immoral habit of mind than the sanctifying of success.
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Moral precepts are constant through the ages and not obedient to circumstances.
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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.
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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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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.
LORD ACTON