To develop and perfect and arm conscience is the great achievement of history.
LORD ACTONEvery class is unfit to govern.
More Lord Acton Quotes
-
-
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
LORD ACTON -
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
LORD ACTON -
If there is any presumption, it is the other way against holders of power…power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
LORD ACTON -
Though 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 ACTON -
The minority can seldom resist. But from the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason.
LORD ACTON -
A people averse to the institution of private property is without the first elements of freedom
LORD ACTON -
Political differences essentially depend on disagreement in moral principles.
LORD ACTON -
Federalism 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 ACTON -
Those who have more power are liable to sin more; no theorem in geometry is more certain than this.
LORD ACTON -
Democracy generally monopolizes and concentrates power.
LORD ACTON -
Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.
LORD ACTON -
Progress, the religion of those who have none.
LORD ACTON -
Liberty and good government do not exclude each other; and there are excellent reasons why they should go together.
LORD ACTON -
Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.
LORD ACTON -
A liberal is only a bundle of prejudices until he has mastered, has understood, experienced the philosophy of Conservatism.
LORD ACTON






