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A government does not desire its powers to be strictly defined, but the subjects require the line to be drawn with increasing precision.

Lord Acton

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Lord Acton
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More quotes by Lord Acton

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The test of liberty is the position and security of minorities.
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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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By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes to be his duty against the influences of authority and majorities, custom and opinion.
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Remember that one touch of ill-nature makes the whole world kin.
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The common vice of democracy is disregard for morality.
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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 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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The few have not strength to achieve great changes unaided the many have not wisdom to be moved by truth unmixed.
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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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Men cannot be made good by the state, but they can easily be made bad. Morality depends on liberty.
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Official truth is not actual truth.
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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 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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Save for the wild force of Nature, nothing moves in this world that is not Greek in its origin.
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The strong man with the dagger is followed by the weak man with the sponge.
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A man can be trusted only up to low-water mark.
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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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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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There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men.
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Before men can find peace and harmony within themselves they must first fall in love with their country.
Lord Acton