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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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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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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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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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Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.
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The passion for power over others can never cease to threaten mankind, and is always sure of finding new and unforseen allies in continuing its martyrology.
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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.
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Progress, the religion of those who have none.
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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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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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Before men can find peace and harmony within themselves they must first fall in love with their country.
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The mills of God grind slowly.
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History is the arbiter of controversy, the monarch of all she surveys.
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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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Feudalism made land the measure and the master of all things.
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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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Political differences essentially depend on disagreement in moral principles.
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Official truth is not actual truth.
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A government does not desire its powers to be strictly defined, but the subjects require the line to be drawn with increasing precision.
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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.
Lord Acton
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History provides neither compensation for suffering nor penalties for wrong.
Lord Acton