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History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.

Lord Acton

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Lord Acton
Illumination
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More quotes by Lord Acton

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It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.
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Remember that one touch of ill-nature makes the whole world kin.
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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.
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The form of government and the condition of society must always correspond. Social equality is therefore a postulate of pure democracy.
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When you perceive a truth, look for the balancing truth.
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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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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.
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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At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities.
Lord Acton
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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.
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.
Lord Acton
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Before men can find peace and harmony within themselves they must first fall in love with their country.
Lord Acton
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Socialism means slavery.
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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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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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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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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History, to be above evasion or dispute, must stand on documents, not on opinions.
Lord Acton
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Men cannot be made good by the state, but they can easily be made bad. Morality depends on liberty.
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