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If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation.

Lord Acton

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Lord Acton
Knowledge
History
Past
Safest
Surest
Emancipation
Obstacle
Obstacles
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More quotes by Lord Acton

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The reward of history is that it releases and relieves us from present strife.
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Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.
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Feudalism made land the measure and the master of all things.
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The fate of every democracy, of every government based on the sovereignty of the people, depends on the choices it makes between these opposite principles, absolute power on the one hand, and on the other the restraints of legality and the authority of tradition.
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The State is competent to assign duties and draw the line between good and evil only in its immediate sphere. Beyond the limits of things necessary for its well-being, it can only give indirect help to fight the battle of life by promoting the influences which prevail against temptation--religion, education, and the distribution of wealth.
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I'm not a driven businessman, but a driven artist. I never think about money. Beautiful things make money.
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Socialism means slavery.
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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.
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Every error pronounces judgment on itself when it attempts to apply its rules to the standard of truth.
Lord Acton
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The principle of the Inquisition was murderous. . . . The popes were not only murderers in the great style, but they also made murder a legal basis of the Christian Church and a condition of salvation.
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Machiavelli's teaching would hardly have stood the test of Parliamentary government, for public discussion demands at least the profession of good faith.
Lord Acton
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History provides neither compensation for suffering nor penalties for wrong.
Lord Acton
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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
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It is easier to find people fit to govern themselves than people fit to govern others.
Lord Acton
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Though oppression may give rise to violent and repeated outbreaks, like the convulsions of a man in pain, it cannot mature a settled purpose and plan of regeneration, unless a new notion of happiness is joined to the sense of present evil.
Lord Acton
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We are not sure we are right until we have made the best case possible for those who are wrong.
Lord Acton
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And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that.
Lord Acton
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From the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason.
Lord Acton
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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
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Liberty has not only enemies which it conquers, but perfidious friends, who rob the fruits of its victories: Absolute democracy, socialism.
Lord Acton