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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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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.
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The reward of history is that it releases and relieves us from present strife.
Lord Acton
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It is easier to find people fit to govern themselves than people fit to govern others.
Lord Acton
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Liberty is the harmony between the will and the law.
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.
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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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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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Before God, there is neither Greek nor barbarian, neither rich nor poor, and the slave is as good as his master, for by birth all men are free they are citizens of the universal commonwealth which embraces all the world, brethren of one family, and children of God.
Lord Acton
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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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Many men can no more be kept straight by spiritual motives than we can live without policemen.
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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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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The strong man with the dagger is followed by the weak man with the sponge.
Lord Acton
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A man can be trusted only up to low-water mark.
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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By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes to be his duty against the influences of authority and majorities, custom and opinion.
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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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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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.
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