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Authority that does not exist for Liberty is not authority but force.

Lord Acton

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Lord Acton
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More quotes by Lord Acton

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Socialism easily accepts despotism. It requires the strongest execution of power -- power sufficient to interfere with property.
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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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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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Remember that one touch of ill-nature makes the whole world kin.
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And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that.
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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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Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime.
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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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The passion for power over others can never cease to threaten mankind, and is always sure of finding new and unforseen allies in continuing its martyrology.
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History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.
Lord Acton
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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.
Lord Acton
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I'm not a driven businessman, but a driven artist. I never think about money. Beautiful things make money.
Lord Acton
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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.
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.
Lord Acton
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Every error pronounces judgment on itself when it attempts to apply its rules to the standard of truth.
Lord Acton
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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.
Lord Acton
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We are not sure we are right until we have made the best case possible for those who are wrong.
Lord Acton
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There is not a soul who does not have to beg alms of another, either a smile, a handshake, or a fond eye.
Lord Acton
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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
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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.
Lord Acton