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

Lord Acton

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More quotes by Lord Acton

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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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Save for the wild force of Nature, nothing moves in this world that is not Greek in its origin.
Lord Acton
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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.
Lord Acton
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The strong man with the dagger is followed by the weak man with the sponge.
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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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There is not a soul who does not have to beg alms of another, either a smile, a handshake, or a fond eye.
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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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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It is easier to find people fit to govern themselves than people fit to govern others.
Lord Acton
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Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.
Lord Acton
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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.
Lord Acton
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Socialism easily accepts despotism. It requires the strongest execution of power -- power sufficient to interfere with property.
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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Official truth is not actual truth.
Lord Acton
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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.
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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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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A liberal is only a bundle of prejudices until he has mastered, has understood, experienced the philosophy of Conservatism.
Lord Acton
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Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.
Lord Acton
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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.
Lord Acton