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 ACTONCharacter is tested by true sentiments more than by conduct. A man is seldom better than his word.
More Lord Acton Quotes
-
-
Live both in the future and the past. Who does not live in the past does not live in the future.
LORD ACTON -
It is easier to find people fit to govern themselves than people fit to govern others.
LORD ACTON -
Men cannot be made good by the state, but they can easily be made bad. Morality depends on liberty.
LORD ACTON -
Be not content with the best book; seek sidelights from the others; have no favourites.
LORD ACTON -
At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own; and this association, which is always dangerous, has sometimes been disastrous.
LORD ACTON -
History, to be above evasion or dispute, must stand on documents, not on opinions.
LORD ACTON -
Far from being the product of a democratic revolution and of an opposition to English institutions, the constitution of the United States was the result of a powerful reaction against democracy, and in favor of the traditions of the mother country.
LORD ACTON -
Socialism easily accepts despotism. It requires the strongest execution of power — power sufficient to interfere with property.
LORD ACTON -
Liberty is the prevention of control by others. This requires self-control and, therefore, religious and spiritual influences; education, knowledge, well-being.
LORD ACTON -
Learn as much by writing as by reading.
LORD ACTON -
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 -
Every class is unfit to govern.
LORD ACTON -
Piety sometimes gives birth to scruples, and faith to superstition, when they are not directed by wisdom and knowledge.
LORD ACTON -
Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.
LORD ACTON -
If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation.
LORD ACTON