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The common vice of democracy is disregard for morality.

Lord Acton

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Lord Acton
Vice
Vices
Morality
Democracy
Common
Disregard

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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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The reward of history is that it releases and relieves us from present strife.
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Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.
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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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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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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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Every error pronounces judgment on itself when it attempts to apply its rules to the standard of truth.
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A liberal is only a bundle of prejudices until he has mastered, has understood, experienced the philosophy of Conservatism.
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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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Liberty is the harmony between the will and the law.
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Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men.
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Remember that one touch of ill-nature makes the whole world kin.
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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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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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Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime.
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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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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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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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Before God, there is neither Greek nor barbarian, neither rich nor poor, and the slave is as good as his master, for by birth all men are free they are citizens of the universal commonwealth which embraces all the world, brethren of one family, and children of God.
Lord Acton