The possession of unlimited power corrodes the conscience, hardens the heart, and confounds the understanding.
LORD ACTONA public man has no right to let his actions be determined by particular interests. He does the same thing as a judge who accepts a bribe. Like a judge he must consider what is right, not what is advantageous to a party or class.
More Lord Acton Quotes
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Do not turn yourself from an end into a means-one does not justify the other.
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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.
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Every class is unfit to govern.
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Those who have more power are liable to sin more; no theorem in geometry is more certain than this.
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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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Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime.
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But when modern absolutism arose, it laid claim to everything on behalf of the sovereign power….
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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.
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Character is tested by true sentiments more than by conduct. A man is seldom better than his word.
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Moral precepts are constant through the ages and not obedient to circumstances.
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The test of liberty is the position and security of minorities.
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Learn as much by writing as by reading.
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There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.
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History provides neither compensation for suffering nor penalties for wrong.
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Political differences essentially depend on disagreement in moral principles.
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If some great catastrophe is not announced every morning, we feel a certain void. Nothing in the paper today, we sigh.
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The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern: every class is unfit to govern.
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Democracy generally monopolizes and concentrates power.
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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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There 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.
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The mills of God grind slowly.
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Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.
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There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men.
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Official truth is not actual truth.
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A convinced man differs from a prejudiced man as an honest man from a liar.
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If there is any presumption, it is the other way against holders of power…power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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