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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.
Lord Acton
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More quotes by Lord Acton
Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.
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The strong man with the dagger is followed by the weak man with the sponge.
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The few have not strength to achieve great changes unaided the many have not wisdom to be moved by truth unmixed.
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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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Liberty is the harmony between the will and the law.
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Socialism means slavery.
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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.
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The light that has guided us is still unquenched, and the causes that have carried us so far in the van of free nations have not spent their power because the story of the future is written in the past, and that which hath been is the same thing that shall be.
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The common vice of democracy is disregard for morality.
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Remember that one touch of ill-nature makes the whole world kin.
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Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.
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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
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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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Authority that does not exist for Liberty is not authority but force.
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Property is not the sacred right. When a rich man becomes poor it is a misfortune, it is not a moral evil. When a poor man becomes destitute, it is a moral evil, teeming with consequences and injurious to society and 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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Every error pronounces judgment on itself when it attempts to apply its rules to the standard of truth.
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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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Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.
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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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