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It is dangerous, at any time, to multiply sources of weakness.

Lord Acton

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Lord Acton
Weakness
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Dangerous
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Multiply
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More quotes by 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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The test of liberty is the position and security of minorities.
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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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Feudalism made land the measure and the master of all things.
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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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Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.
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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 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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The wisdom of divine rule appears not in the perfection but in the improvement of the world... History is the true demonstration of Religion.
Lord Acton
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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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Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime.
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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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Every error pronounces judgment on itself when it attempts to apply its rules to the standard of truth.
Lord Acton
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History is the arbiter of controversy, the monarch of all she surveys.
Lord Acton
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Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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History provides neither compensation for suffering nor penalties for wrong.
Lord Acton
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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.
Lord Acton
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The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.
Lord Acton
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We are not sure we are right until we have made the best case possible for those who are wrong.
Lord Acton
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Many things are better for silence than for speech: others are better for speech than for stationery.
Lord Acton