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The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority.

Lord Acton

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Lord Acton
Fraud
Tyranny
Majority
Democracy
Evil
Pervading

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There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men.
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Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.
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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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Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.
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It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.
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Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.
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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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Before men can find peace and harmony within themselves they must first fall in love with their country.
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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 principle of the Inquisition was murderous. . . . The popes were not only murderers in the great style, but they also made murder a legal basis of the Christian Church and a condition of salvation.
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Many men can no more be kept straight by spiritual motives than we can live without policemen.
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The reward of history is that it releases and relieves us from present strife.
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And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that.
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Feudalism made land the measure and the master of all things.
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The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.
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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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Liberty is the harmony between the will and the law.
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It is easier to find people fit to govern themselves than people fit to govern others.
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Machiavelli's teaching would hardly have stood the test of Parliamentary government, for public discussion demands at least the profession of good faith.
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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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