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At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities.

Lord Acton

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Lord Acton
Freedom
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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.
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Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.
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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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Save for the wild force of Nature, nothing moves in this world that is not Greek in its origin.
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The strong man with the dagger is followed by the weak man with the sponge.
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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.
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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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The State is competent to assign duties and draw the line between good and evil only in its immediate sphere. Beyond the limits of things necessary for its well-being, it can only give indirect help to fight the battle of life by promoting the influences which prevail against temptation--religion, education, and the distribution of wealth.
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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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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.
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Advice to Persons About to Write History - Don't.
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A man can be trusted only up to low-water mark.
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To develop and perfect and arm conscience is the great achievement of history.
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Remember that one touch of ill-nature makes the whole world kin.
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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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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.
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Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.
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Liberty is the harmony between the will and the law.
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The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority.
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History provides neither compensation for suffering nor penalties for wrong.
Lord Acton