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It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.

Lord Acton

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Lord Acton
Liberty
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More quotes by Lord Acton

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Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.
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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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When you perceive a truth, look for the balancing truth.
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There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men.
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History, to be above evasion or dispute, must stand on documents, not on opinions.
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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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Fanaticism displays itself in the masses but the masses were rarely fanaticised and the crimes ascribed to it were commonly due to the calculations of dispassionate politicians.
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Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.
Lord Acton
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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.
Lord Acton
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Authority that does not exist for Liberty is not authority but force.
Lord Acton
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At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own and this association, which is always dangerous, has sometimes been disastrous.
Lord Acton
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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.
Lord Acton
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We are not sure we are right until we have made the best case possible for those who are wrong.
Lord Acton
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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.
Lord Acton
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Advice to Persons About to Write History - Don't.
Lord Acton
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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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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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The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.
Lord Acton
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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.
Lord Acton
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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.
Lord Acton