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Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.

Lord Acton

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Lord Acton
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More quotes by Lord Acton

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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
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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
Lord Acton
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Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Lord Acton
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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
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Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.
Lord Acton
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The reward of history is that it releases and relieves us from present strife.
Lord Acton
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Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime.
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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Many things are better for silence than for speech: others are better for speech than for stationery.
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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Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.
Lord Acton
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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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Many men can no more be kept straight by spiritual motives than we can live without policemen.
Lord Acton
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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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Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.
Lord Acton
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When the last of the Reformers died, religion, instead of emancipating the nations, had become an excuse for the criminal art of despots. Calvin preached, and Bellarmine lectured but Machiavelli reigned.
Lord Acton
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A liberal is only a bundle of prejudices until he has mastered, has understood, experienced the philosophy of Conservatism.
Lord Acton
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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.
Lord Acton
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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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If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation.
Lord Acton