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

Lord Acton

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Lord Acton
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Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.
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It is dangerous, at any time, to multiply sources of weakness.
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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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Official truth is not actual truth.
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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.
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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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Feudalism made land the measure and the master of all things.
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When you perceive a truth, look for the balancing truth.
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Truth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history.
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If some great catastrophe is not announced every morning, we feel a certain void. Nothing in the paper today, we sigh.
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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.
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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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The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority.
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Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime.
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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.
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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.
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