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Be not content with the best book; seek sidelights from the others; have no favourites.

Lord Acton

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
LORD ACTON

End Higher Liberty Mean Political
A liberal is only a bundle of prejudices until he has mastered, has understood, experienced the philosophy of Conservatism.
LORD ACTON

Bundles Experience Master Philosophy Prejudice Understand
Ink was not invented to express our real feelings.
LORD ACTON

Express Feeling Ink Inverted Real
I have reached the end of my time, and have hardly come to the beginning of my task.
LORD ACTON

Begining Come End Hardly Task Time
When the last of the Reformers died, religion, instead of emancipating the nations, had become an excuse for the criminal art of despots. Calvin preached, and Bellarmine lectured; but Machiavelli reigned.
LORD ACTON

Art Criminal Despot Die Emancipate Excuse Last Nation Preacher Reformer
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

Ago Bad Common Crime Good Ignorance Liberty Men Next Pretext Seed Sow Strong Year
In every age its progress has been beset by its natural enemies, by ignorance and superstition, by lust of conquest and by love of ease, by the strong man’s craving for power, and the poor man’s craving for food.
LORD ACTON

Age Best Conquest Crave Enemies Every Food Ignorance Man Poor Progress
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…
LORD ACTON

Benefit Class Higher Liberty Mean Men Political
A generous spirit prefers that his country should be poor, and weak, and of no account, but free, rather than powerful, prosperous, and enslaved.
LORD ACTON

Account Country Ensalve Generous Powerful Spirit
No public character has ever stood the revelation of private utterance and correspondence.
LORD ACTON

Character Correspondance Public Revelation Stood Utterance
Men cannot be made good by the state, but they can easily be made bad. Morality depends on liberty.
LORD ACTON

Bad Easily Good Made Men State
Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.
LORD ACTON

Authority Essential Limitation
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
LORD ACTON

Corrupt Inspirational Leadership Power Trend Work
. It is the delicate fruit of a mature civilization; and scarcely a century has passed since nations, that knew the meaning of the term, resolved to be free.
LORD ACTON

Century Civilization Delicate Free Mature Mean Nation Pass Resolve Scarcely Since Term
If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation.
LORD ACTON

Burden Emancipation History Knowledge Obstacle Past Safest Surest
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.
LORD ACTON

Gold Grainm Stream Knowledge Past Politics River Rivers Sand Science

Be not content with the best book; seek sidelights from the others; have no favourites.

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Be not content with the best book; seek sidelights from the others; have no favourites.

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