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History, to be above evasion or dispute, must stand on documents, not on opinions.

Lord Acton

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Lord Acton
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More quotes by Lord Acton

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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.
Lord Acton
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Every error pronounces judgment on itself when it attempts to apply its rules to the standard of truth.
Lord Acton
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Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.
Lord Acton
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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.
Lord Acton
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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.
Lord Acton
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When you perceive a truth, look for the balancing truth.
Lord Acton
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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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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.
Lord Acton
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Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.
Lord Acton
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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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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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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.
Lord Acton
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The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority.
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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Before men can find peace and harmony within themselves they must first fall in love with their country.
Lord Acton
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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.
Lord Acton
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In every age its (liberty's) progress has been beset by its natural enemies, by ignorance and superstition, by lust of conquest and by love of ease, by the strong man's craving for power, and the poor man's craving for food
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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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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Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime.
Lord Acton