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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

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More quotes by Lord Acton

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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.
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Progress, the religion of those who have none.
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The mills of God grind slowly.
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Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.
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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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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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Many men can no more be kept straight by spiritual motives than we can live without policemen.
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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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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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Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.
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Federalism is the best curb on democracy. [It] assigns limited powers to the central government. Thereby all power is limited. It excludes absolute power of the majority.
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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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There is not a soul who does not have to beg alms of another, either a smile, a handshake, or a fond eye.
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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 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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History is the arbiter of controversy, the monarch of all she surveys.
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History provides neither compensation for suffering nor penalties for wrong.
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The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority.
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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.
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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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