Authority that does not exist for Liberty is not authority but force.
LORD ACTONFanaticism in religion is the alliance of the passions she condemns with the dogmas she professes.
More Lord Acton Quotes
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The finest opportunity ever given to the world was thrown away because the passion of equality made vain the hope for freedom.
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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.
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Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end…liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition…
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There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion.
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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.
LORD ACTON -
Great men are almost always bad men.
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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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Learn as much by writing as by reading.
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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 -
For centuries it was never discovered that education was a function of the State, and the State never attempted to educate.
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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 -
I’m not a driven businessman, but a driven artist. I never think about money. Beautiful things make money.
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When the revolutionary theory of government began to prevail, and Church and State found that they were educating for opposite ends and in a contradictory spirit, it became necessary to remove children entirely from the influence of religion.
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Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.
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Do not turn yourself from an end into a means-one does not justify the other.
LORD ACTON