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Every error pronounces judgment on itself when it attempts to apply its rules to the standard of truth.

Lord Acton

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Lord Acton
Attempts
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Errors
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Pronounces
Judgment

More quotes by Lord Acton

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To develop and perfect and arm conscience is the great achievement of history.
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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.
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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.
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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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Remember that one touch of ill-nature makes the whole world kin.
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The reward of history is that it releases and relieves us from present strife.
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Advice to Persons About to Write History - Don't.
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Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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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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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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When you perceive a truth, look for the balancing truth.
Lord Acton
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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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Official truth is not actual truth.
Lord Acton
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Many men can no more be kept straight by spiritual motives than we can live without policemen.
Lord Acton
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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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Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.
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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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Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.
Lord Acton
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A man can be trusted only up to low-water mark.
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