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Remember that one touch of ill-nature makes the whole world kin.

Lord Acton

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Lord Acton
Ill
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Makes
Nature
Remember
Whole
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More quotes by Lord Acton

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The mills of God grind slowly.
Lord Acton
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Truth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history.
Lord Acton
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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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The State is competent to assign duties and draw the line between good and evil only in its immediate sphere. Beyond the limits of things necessary for its well-being, it can only give indirect help to fight the battle of life by promoting the influences which prevail against temptation--religion, education, and the distribution of wealth.
Lord Acton
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The test of liberty is the position and security of minorities.
Lord Acton
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Progress, the religion of those who have none.
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.
Lord Acton
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At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities.
Lord Acton
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History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.
Lord Acton
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Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Lord Acton
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From the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason.
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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Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.
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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Though oppression may give rise to violent and repeated outbreaks, like the convulsions of a man in pain, it cannot mature a settled purpose and plan of regeneration, unless a new notion of happiness is joined to the sense of present evil.
Lord Acton
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Liberty has not only enemies which it conquers, but perfidious friends, who rob the fruits of its victories: Absolute democracy, socialism.
Lord Acton
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It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.
Lord Acton
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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.
Lord Acton
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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.
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.
Lord Acton