Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.
LORD ACTONInk was not invented to express our real feelings.
More Lord Acton Quotes
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Official truth is not actual truth.
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Liberty has not only enemies which it conquers, but perfidious friends, who rob the fruits of its victories: Absolute democracy, socialism.
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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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A liberal is only a bundle of prejudices until he has mastered, has understood, experienced the philosophy of Conservatism.
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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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The test of liberty is the position and security of minorities.
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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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Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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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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Moral precepts are constant through the ages and not obedient to circumstances.
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Be generous before you are just. Do not temper mercy with justice.
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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.
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At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities.
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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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But when modern absolutism arose, it laid claim to everything on behalf of the sovereign power….
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