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Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime.

Lord Acton

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Lord Acton
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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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From the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason.
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I'm not a driven businessman, but a driven artist. I never think about money. Beautiful things make money.
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Every error pronounces judgment on itself when it attempts to apply its rules to the standard of truth.
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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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A public man has no right to let his actions be determined by particular interests. He does the same thing as a judge who accepts a bribe. Like a judge he must consider what is right, not what is advantageous to a party or class.
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Official truth is not actual truth.
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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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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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Truth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history.
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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
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If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation.
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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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A liberal is only a bundle of prejudices until he has mastered, has understood, experienced the philosophy of Conservatism.
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Progress, the religion of those who have none.
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The true guide of our conduct is no outward authority, but the voice of God, who comes down to dwell in our souls, who knows all our thoughts, to whom are owing all the truth we know, and all the good we do for vice is voluntary, and virtue comes from the grace of the heavenly spirit within.
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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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The few have not strength to achieve great changes unaided the many have not wisdom to be moved by truth unmixed.
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The law of liberty tends to abolish the reign of race over race, of faith over faith, of class over class. It is not the realisation of a political ideal: it is the discharge of a moral obligation.
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