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Men cannot be made good by the state, but they can easily be made bad. Morality depends on liberty.

Lord Acton

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Lord Acton
Cannot
States
Made
Historian
Good
Easily
Men
Morality
Depends
Liberty
State

More quotes by 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.
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The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.
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Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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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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The common vice of democracy is disregard for morality.
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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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Official truth is not actual truth.
Lord Acton
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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.
Lord Acton
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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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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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Many men can no more be kept straight by spiritual motives than we can live without policemen.
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Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.
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History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.
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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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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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From the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason.
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Socialism means slavery.
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A liberal is only a bundle of prejudices until he has mastered, has understood, experienced the philosophy of Conservatism.
Lord Acton
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Socialism easily accepts despotism. It requires the strongest execution of power -- power sufficient to interfere with property.
Lord Acton
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When you perceive a truth, look for the balancing truth.
Lord Acton