Political differences essentially depend on disagreement in moral principles.
LORD ACTONPolitical differences essentially depend on disagreement in moral principles.
LORD ACTONThe issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.
LORD ACTONThe one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.
LORD ACTONThe 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 ACTONDespotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.
LORD ACTONDemocracy generally monopolizes and concentrates power.
LORD ACTONWe are not sure we are right until we have made the best case possible for those who are wrong.
LORD ACTONThe danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. ~ Every class is unfit to govern … Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.
LORD ACTONMonarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.
LORD ACTONGreat men are almost always bad men.
LORD ACTONPower tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
LORD ACTONA wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times.
LORD ACTONDo not turn yourself from an end into a means-one does not justify the other.
LORD ACTONOfficial truth is not actual truth.
LORD ACTONBut when modern absolutism arose, it laid claim to everything on behalf of the sovereign power….
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 ACTON