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Advice to Persons About to Write History - Don't.

Lord Acton

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Lord Acton
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More quotes by Lord Acton

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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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Authority that does not exist for Liberty is not authority but force.
Lord Acton
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The wisdom of divine rule appears not in the perfection but in the improvement of the world... History is the true demonstration of Religion.
Lord Acton
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To develop and perfect and arm conscience is the great achievement of history.
Lord Acton
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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.
Lord Acton
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Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.
Lord Acton
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The test of liberty is the position and security of minorities.
Lord Acton
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Political differences essentially depend on disagreement in moral principles.
Lord Acton
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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
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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.
Lord Acton
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Men cannot be made good by the state, but they can easily be made bad. Morality depends on liberty.
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.
Lord Acton
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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
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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.
Lord Acton
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Feudalism made land the measure and the master of all things.
Lord Acton
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Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.
Lord Acton
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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.
Lord Acton
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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.
Lord Acton
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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.
Lord Acton
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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.
Lord Acton