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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

Lord Acton

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Lord Acton
Every
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More quotes by 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.
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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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To develop and perfect and arm conscience is the great achievement of history.
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Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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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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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 mills of God grind slowly.
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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.
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The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority.
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Many things are better for silence than for speech: others are better for speech than for stationery.
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Save for the wild force of Nature, nothing moves in this world that is not Greek in its origin.
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Progress, the religion of those who have none.
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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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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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The reward of history is that it releases and relieves us from present strife.
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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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Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.
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Truth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history.
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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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