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Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.

Lord Acton

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Lord Acton
Supremacy
Aristocracy
Despotism
Monarchy
Contracts
Numbers
Hardens
Democracy
Oligarchy
Expands

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Socialism means slavery.
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Remember that one touch of ill-nature makes the whole world kin.
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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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Feudalism made land the measure and the master of all things.
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If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation.
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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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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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Men cannot be made good by the state, but they can easily be made bad. Morality depends on liberty.
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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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The common vice of democracy is disregard for morality.
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When you perceive a truth, look for the balancing truth.
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The passion for power over others can never cease to threaten mankind, and is always sure of finding new and unforseen allies in continuing its martyrology.
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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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From the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason.
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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 idea that the object of constitutions is not to confirm the predominance of any interest, but to prevent it to preserve with equal care the independence of labour and the security of property to make the rich safe against envy, and the poor against oppression, marks the highest level attained by the statesmanship of Greece.
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The light that has guided us is still unquenched, and the causes that have carried us so far in the van of free nations have not spent their power because the story of the future is written in the past, and that which hath been is the same thing that shall be.
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