Quote

Socialism easily accepts despotism. It requires the strongest execution of power -- power sufficient to interfere with property.

Lord Acton

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Lord Acton
Property
Despotism
Accepting
Interfere
Power
Execution
Strongest
Socialism
Sufficient
Requires
Easily
Accepts

More quotes by Lord Acton

Image
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
Image
Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.
Lord Acton
Image
At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own and this association, which is always dangerous, has sometimes been disastrous.
Lord Acton
Image
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
Image
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.
Lord Acton
Image
Socialism means slavery.
Lord Acton
Image
When you perceive a truth, look for the balancing truth.
Lord Acton
Image
Remember that one touch of ill-nature makes the whole world kin.
Lord Acton
Image
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
Image
The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.
Lord Acton
Image
Truth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history.
Lord Acton
Image
Every error pronounces judgment on itself when it attempts to apply its rules to the standard of truth.
Lord Acton
Image
The common vice of democracy is disregard for morality.
Lord Acton
Image
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.
Lord Acton
Image
The form of government and the condition of society must always correspond. Social equality is therefore a postulate of pure democracy.
Lord Acton
Image
History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.
Lord Acton
Image
A government does not desire its powers to be strictly defined, but the subjects require the line to be drawn with increasing precision.
Lord Acton
Image
Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime.
Lord Acton
Image
Liberty has not only enemies which it conquers, but perfidious friends, who rob the fruits of its victories: Absolute democracy, socialism.
Lord Acton
Image
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