Every class is unfit to govern.
LORD ACTONJudge talent at its best and character at its worst.
More Lord Acton Quotes
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Moral precepts are constant through the ages and not obedient to circumstances.
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History, to be above evasion or dispute, must stand on documents, not on opinions.
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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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Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
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No public character has ever stood the revelation of private utterance and correspondence.
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Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.
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There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion.
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Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.
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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.
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Judge talent at its best and character at its worst.
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The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority.
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The true guide of our conduct is no outward authority, but the voice of God, who comes down to dwell in our souls, who knows all our thoughts, to whom are owing all the truth we know, and all the good we do; for vice is voluntary, and virtue comes from the grace of the heavenly spirit within.
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Be generous before you are just. Do not temper mercy with justice.
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Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right of being able to do what we ought.
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Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime.
LORD ACTON