Quote

Liberty has not only enemies which it conquers, but perfidious friends, who rob the fruits of its victories: Absolute democracy, socialism.

Lord Acton

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Lord Acton
Friends
Enemies
Absolutes
Absolute
Perfidious
Fruit
Conquers
Victory
Victories
Democracy
Fruits
Liberty
Socialism
Enemy
Conquer

More quotes by Lord Acton

Image
If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation.
Lord Acton
Image
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
Image
When you perceive a truth, look for the balancing truth.
Lord Acton
Image
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.
Lord Acton
Image
Save for the wild force of Nature, nothing moves in this world that is not Greek in its origin.
Lord Acton
Image
A man can be trusted only up to low-water mark.
Lord Acton
Image
If some great catastrophe is not announced every morning, we feel a certain void. Nothing in the paper today, we sigh.
Lord Acton
Image
Fanaticism displays itself in the masses but the masses were rarely fanaticised and the crimes ascribed to it were commonly due to the calculations of dispassionate politicians.
Lord Acton
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they do no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way against holders of power...power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Lord Acton
Image
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
Image
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.
Lord Acton
Image
The common vice of democracy is disregard for morality.
Lord Acton
Image
Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime.
Lord Acton
Image
Before men can find peace and harmony within themselves they must first fall in love with their country.
Lord Acton
Image
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.
Lord Acton
Image
At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own and this association, which is always dangerous, has sometimes been disastrous.
Lord Acton
Image
The mills of God grind slowly.
Lord Acton
Image
It is easier to find people fit to govern themselves than people fit to govern others.
Lord Acton