A liberal is only a bundle of prejudices until he has mastered, has understood, experienced the philosophy of Conservatism.
LORD ACTONA liberal is only a bundle of prejudices until he has mastered, has understood, experienced the philosophy of Conservatism.
LORD ACTONOpinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.
LORD ACTONThere is not a more perilous or immoral habit of mind than the sanctifying of success.
LORD ACTONA people averse to the institution of private property is without the first elements of freedom
LORD ACTONDemocracy generally monopolizes and concentrates power.
LORD ACTONThere 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.
LORD ACTONI have reached the end of my time, and have hardly come to the beginning of my task.
LORD ACTONFanaticism in religion is the alliance of the passions she condemns with the dogmas she professes.
LORD ACTONLimitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.
LORD ACTONBe generous before you are just. Do not temper mercy with justice.
LORD ACTONAnd 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.
LORD ACTONLiberty, 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 ACTONFederalism 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 ACTONThe 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 ACTONI cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they do no wrong.
LORD ACTONThe principle of the Inquisition was murderous. . . . The popes were not only murderers in the great style, but they also made murder a legal basis of the Christian Church and a condition of salvation.
LORD ACTON