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The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.

Lord Acton

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Lord Acton
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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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At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities.
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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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It is dangerous, at any time, to multiply sources of weakness.
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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.
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We are not sure we are right until we have made the best case possible for those who are wrong.
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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.
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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.
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In every age its (liberty's) progress has been beset by its natural enemies, by ignorance and superstition, by lust of conquest and by love of ease, by the strong man's craving for power, and the poor man's craving for food
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The test of liberty is the position and security of minorities.
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Federalism 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.
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The 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.
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The idea that the object of constitutions is not to confirm the predominance of any interest, but to prevent it to preserve with equal care the independence of labour and the security of property to make the rich safe against envy, and the poor against oppression, marks the highest level attained by the statesmanship of Greece.
Lord Acton
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The strong man with the dagger is followed by the weak man with the sponge.
Lord Acton
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Save for the wild force of Nature, nothing moves in this world that is not Greek in its origin.
Lord Acton
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I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they do no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way against holders of power...power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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.
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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.
Lord Acton
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Liberty is the harmony between the will and the law.
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Many men can no more be kept straight by spiritual motives than we can live without policemen.
Lord Acton