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There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men. Imagine a congress of eminent celebrities, such as More, Bacon, Grotius, Pascal, Cromwell, Bossuet, Montesquieu, Jefferson, Napoleon, Pitt, etc. The result would be an Encyclopedia of Error.

Lord Acton

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Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.
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Authority that does not exist for Liberty is not authority but force.
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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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Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.
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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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Many things are better for silence than for speech: others are better for speech than for stationery.
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The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.
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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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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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Advice to Persons About to Write History - Don't.
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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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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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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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Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime.
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The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny 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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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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It is dangerous, at any time, to multiply sources of weakness.
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History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.
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