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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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More quotes by Lord Acton
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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The strong man with the dagger is followed by the weak man with the sponge.
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We are not sure we are right until we have made the best case possible for those who are wrong.
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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.
Lord Acton
Every error pronounces judgment on itself when it attempts to apply its rules to the standard of truth.
Lord Acton
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
The science of politics is the one science that is deposited by the streams of history, like the grains of gold in the sand of a river and the knowledge of the past, the record of truths revealed by experience, is eminently practical, as an instrument of action and a power that goes to making the future.
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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.
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Liberty is the harmony between the will and the law.
Lord Acton
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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Official truth is not actual truth.
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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.
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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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I'm not a driven businessman, but a driven artist. I never think about money. Beautiful things make money.
Lord Acton
It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.
Lord Acton
Machiavelli's teaching would hardly have stood the test of Parliamentary government, for public discussion demands at least the profession of good faith.
Lord Acton
History is the arbiter of controversy, the monarch of all she surveys.
Lord Acton
Save for the wild force of Nature, nothing moves in this world that is not Greek in its origin.
Lord Acton
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
Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.
Lord Acton