Liberty is the prevention of control by others.
LORD ACTONDo not turn yourself from an end into a means-one does not justify the other.
More Lord Acton Quotes
-
-
Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.
LORD ACTON -
From the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason.
LORD ACTON -
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.
LORD ACTON -
Great men are almost always bad men.
LORD ACTON -
The long term versus the short term argument is one used by losers.
LORD ACTON -
A convinced man differs from a prejudiced man as an honest man from a liar.
LORD ACTON -
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 -
A people averse to the institution of private property is without the first elements of freedom
LORD ACTON -
In England Parliament is above the law. In America the law is above Congress.
LORD ACTON -
Piety sometimes gives birth to scruples, and faith to superstition, when they are not directed by wisdom and knowledge.
LORD ACTON -
Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority…
LORD ACTON -
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 -
Every class is unfit to govern.
LORD ACTON -
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 -
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