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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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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.
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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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We are not sure we are right until we have made the best case possible for those who are wrong.
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It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.
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A man can be trusted only up to low-water mark.
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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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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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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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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.
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Truth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history.
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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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Political differences essentially depend on disagreement in moral principles.
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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.
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Machiavelli's teaching would hardly have stood the test of Parliamentary government, for public discussion demands at least the profession of good faith.
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There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men.
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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.
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Liberty is the harmony between the will and the law.
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Men cannot be made good by the state, but they can easily be made bad. Morality depends on liberty.
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The science of politics is the one science that is deposited by the streams of history, like the grains of gold in the sand of a river and the knowledge of the past, the record of truths revealed by experience, is eminently practical, as an instrument of action and a power that goes to making the future.
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