Liberty has not only enemies which it conquers, but perfidious friends, who rob the fruits of its victories: Absolute democracy, socialism.
LORD ACTONIf some great catastrophe is not announced every morning, we feel a certain void. Nothing in the paper today, we sigh.
More Lord Acton Quotes
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Be generous before you are just. Do not temper mercy with justice.
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. It is the delicate fruit of a mature civilization; and scarcely a century has passed since nations, that knew the meaning of the term, resolved to be free.
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There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.
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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 are many things the government cant do, many good purposes it must renounce. It must leave them to the enterprise of others. It cannot feed the people. It cannot enrich the people. It cannot teach the people. It cannot convert the people.
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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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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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The will of the people cannot make just that which is unjust.
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The mills of God grind slowly.
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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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Live both in the future and the past. Who does not live in the past does not live in the future.
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History, to be above evasion or dispute, must stand on documents, not on opinions.
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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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Those who have more power are liable to sin more; no theorem in geometry is more certain than this.
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When you perceive a truth, look for the balancing truth.
LORD ACTON