Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.
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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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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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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Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.
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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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The common vice of democracy is disregard for morality.
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History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.
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I’m not a driven businessman, but a driven artist. I never think about money. Beautiful things make money.
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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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Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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Be generous before you are just. Do not temper mercy with justice.
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Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority…
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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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And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that.
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The possession of unlimited power corrodes the conscience, hardens the heart, and confounds the understanding.
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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.
LORD ACTON