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There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men.

Lord Acton

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More quotes by Lord Acton

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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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Truth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history.
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Socialism means slavery.
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To develop and perfect and arm conscience is the great achievement of 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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Save for the wild force of Nature, nothing moves in this world that is not Greek in its origin.
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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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Authority that does not exist for Liberty is not authority but force.
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A generous spirit prefers that his country should be poor, and weak, and of no account, but free, rather than powerful, prosperous, and enslaved.
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A liberal is only a bundle of prejudices until he has mastered, has understood, experienced the philosophy of Conservatism.
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Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime.
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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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There is not a soul who does not have to beg alms of another, either a smile, a handshake, or a fond eye.
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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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Though oppression may give rise to violent and repeated outbreaks, like the convulsions of a man in pain, it cannot mature a settled purpose and plan of regeneration, unless a new notion of happiness is joined to the sense of present evil.
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History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.
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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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Men cannot be made good by the state, but they can easily be made bad. Morality depends on liberty.
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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.
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Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.
Lord Acton