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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
Past
Safest
Surest
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More quotes by Lord Acton

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Advice to Persons About to Write History - Don't.
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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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Liberty is the harmony between the will and the law.
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Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.
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The few have not strength to achieve great changes unaided the many have not wisdom to be moved by truth unmixed.
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Truth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history.
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Many things are better for silence than for speech: others are better for speech than for stationery.
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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.
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Feudalism made land the measure and the master of all things.
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To develop and perfect and arm conscience is the great achievement of history.
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Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. It is not for the sake of a good public administration that it is required, but for the security in the pursuit of the highest objects of civil society, and of private life.
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Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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A public man has no right to let his actions be determined by particular interests. He does the same thing as a judge who accepts a bribe. Like a judge he must consider what is right, not what is advantageous to a party or class.
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The light that has guided us is still unquenched, and the causes that have carried us so far in the van of free nations have not spent their power because the story of the future is written in the past, and that which hath been is the same thing that shall be.
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By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes to be his duty against the influences of authority and majorities, custom and opinion.
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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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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.
Lord Acton
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The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.
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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Socialism means slavery.
Lord Acton