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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
Spiritual
Live
Without
Many
Policemen
Men
Motives
Motive
Straight
Kept

More quotes by Lord Acton

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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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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.
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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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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.
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The form of government and the condition of society must always correspond. Social equality is therefore a postulate of pure democracy.
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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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It is easier to find people fit to govern themselves than people fit to govern others.
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There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men. Imagine a congress of eminent celebrities, such as More, Bacon, Grotius, Pascal, Cromwell, Bossuet, Montesquieu, Jefferson, Napoleon, Pitt, etc. The result would be an Encyclopedia of Error.
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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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Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.
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Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.
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If some great catastrophe is not announced every morning, we feel a certain void. Nothing in the paper today, we sigh.
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History provides neither compensation for suffering nor penalties for wrong.
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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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Progress, the religion of those who have none.
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Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.
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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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Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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A liberal is only a bundle of prejudices until he has mastered, has understood, experienced the philosophy of Conservatism.
Lord Acton