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Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Lord Acton
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More quotes by Lord Acton
Official truth is not actual truth.
Lord Acton
There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men. Imagine a congress of eminent celebrities, such as More, Bacon, Grotius, Pascal, Cromwell, Bossuet, Montesquieu, Jefferson, Napoleon, Pitt, etc. The result would be an Encyclopedia of Error.
Lord Acton
The true natural check on absolute democracy is the federal system, which limits the central government by the powers reserved, and the state governments by the powers they have ceded.
Lord Acton
The law of liberty tends to abolish the reign of race over race, of faith over faith, of class over class. It is not the realisation of a political ideal: it is the discharge of a moral obligation.
Lord Acton
A liberal is only a bundle of prejudices until he has mastered, has understood, experienced the philosophy of Conservatism.
Lord Acton
There is not a soul who does not have to beg alms of another, either a smile, a handshake, or a fond eye.
Lord Acton
Fanaticism displays itself in the masses but the masses were rarely fanaticised and the crimes ascribed to it were commonly due to the calculations of dispassionate politicians.
Lord Acton
Advice to Persons About to Write History - Don't.
Lord Acton
Liberty is the harmony between the will and the law.
Lord Acton
Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime.
Lord Acton
Before God, there is neither Greek nor barbarian, neither rich nor poor, and the slave is as good as his master, for by birth all men are free they are citizens of the universal commonwealth which embraces all the world, brethren of one family, and children of God.
Lord Acton
History is the arbiter of controversy, the monarch of all she surveys.
Lord Acton
The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.
Lord Acton
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.
Lord Acton
Truth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history.
Lord Acton
Property is not the sacred right. When a rich man becomes poor it is a misfortune, it is not a moral evil. When a poor man becomes destitute, it is a moral evil, teeming with consequences and injurious to society and morality.
Lord Acton
History, to be above evasion or dispute, must stand on documents, not on opinions.
Lord Acton
The wisdom of divine rule appears not in the perfection but in the improvement of the world... History is the true demonstration of Religion.
Lord Acton
Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.
Lord Acton
The common vice of democracy is disregard for morality.
Lord Acton