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Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.

Lord Acton

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Lord Acton
Essential
Essentials
Authority
Legitimacy
Political
Legitimate
Government
Effectively
Historian
Limitation
Limited

More quotes by Lord Acton

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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.
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I'm not a driven businessman, but a driven artist. I never think about money. Beautiful things make money.
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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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Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.
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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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The test of liberty is the position and security of minorities.
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The law of liberty tends to abolish the reign of race over race, of faith over faith, of class over class. It is not the realisation of a political ideal: it is the discharge of a moral obligation.
Lord Acton
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The mills of God grind slowly.
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Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.
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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When you perceive a truth, look for the balancing truth.
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A generous spirit prefers that his country should be poor, and weak, and of no account, but free, rather than powerful, prosperous, and enslaved.
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The wisdom of divine rule appears not in the perfection but in the improvement of the world... History is the true demonstration of Religion.
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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 government does not desire its powers to be strictly defined, but the subjects require the line to be drawn with increasing precision.
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Liberty is the harmony between the will and the law.
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The common vice of democracy is disregard for morality.
Lord Acton
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The form of government and the condition of society must always correspond. Social equality is therefore a postulate of pure democracy.
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Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.
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