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A generous spirit prefers that his country should be poor, and weak, and of no account, but free, rather than powerful, prosperous, and enslaved.

Lord Acton

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Lord Acton
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More quotes by 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.
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Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. It is not for the sake of a good public administration that it is required, but for the security in the pursuit of the highest objects of civil society, and of private life.
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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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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 strong man with the dagger is followed by the weak man with the sponge.
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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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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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Official truth is not actual truth.
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The common vice of democracy is disregard for morality.
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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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Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.
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The passion for power over others can never cease to threaten mankind, and is always sure of finding new and unforseen allies in continuing its martyrology.
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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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Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.
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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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Progress, the religion of those who have none.
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Socialism means slavery.
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Feudalism made land the measure and the master of all things.
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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.
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