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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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Lord Acton
Many
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More quotes by Lord Acton

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The true guide of our conduct is no outward authority, but the voice of God, who comes down to dwell in our souls, who knows all our thoughts, to whom are owing all the truth we know, and all the good we do for vice is voluntary, and virtue comes from the grace of the heavenly spirit within.
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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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At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities.
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The common vice of democracy is disregard for morality.
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It is easier to find people fit to govern themselves than people fit to govern others.
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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.
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History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.
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We are not sure we are right until we have made the best case possible for those who are wrong.
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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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A government does not desire its powers to be strictly defined, but the subjects require the line to be drawn with increasing precision.
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Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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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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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.
Lord Acton
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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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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.
Lord Acton
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History is the arbiter of controversy, the monarch of all she surveys.
Lord Acton
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When you perceive a truth, look for the balancing truth.
Lord Acton
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Fanaticism displays itself in the masses but the masses were rarely fanaticised and the crimes ascribed to it were commonly due to the calculations of dispassionate politicians.
Lord Acton
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Progress, the religion of those who have none.
Lord Acton
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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.
Lord Acton