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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
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More quotes by 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.
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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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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.
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Many men can no more be kept straight by spiritual motives than we can live without policemen.
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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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Socialism easily accepts despotism. It requires the strongest execution of power -- power sufficient to interfere with property.
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If some great catastrophe is not announced every morning, we feel a certain void. Nothing in the paper today, we sigh.
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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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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.
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The test of liberty is the position and security of minorities.
Lord Acton
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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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A generous spirit prefers that his country should be poor, and weak, and of no account, but free, rather than powerful, prosperous, and enslaved.
Lord Acton
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A man can be trusted only up to low-water mark.
Lord Acton
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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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Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.
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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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At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities.
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Official truth is not actual truth.
Lord Acton
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Liberty has not only enemies which it conquers, but perfidious friends, who rob the fruits of its victories: Absolute democracy, socialism.
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