Quote

The form of government and the condition of society must always correspond. Social equality is therefore a postulate of pure democracy.

Lord Acton

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Lord Acton
Form
Equality
Government
Condition
Must
Therefore
Always
Pure
Conditions
Democracy
Society
Postulate
Social
Correspond

More quotes by Lord Acton

Image
Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.
Lord Acton
Image
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
Image
The test of liberty is the position and security of minorities.
Lord Acton
Image
The law of liberty tends to abolish the reign of race over race, of faith over faith, of class over class. It is not the realisation of a political ideal: it is the discharge of a moral obligation.
Lord Acton
Image
And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that.
Lord Acton
Image
There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men.
Lord Acton
Image
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Lord Acton
Image
Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.
Lord Acton
Image
The few have not strength to achieve great changes unaided the many have not wisdom to be moved by truth unmixed.
Lord Acton
Image
Liberty has not only enemies which it conquers, but perfidious friends, who rob the fruits of its victories: Absolute democracy, socialism.
Lord Acton
Image
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
Image
History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.
Lord Acton
Image
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
Image
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.
Lord Acton
Image
Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime.
Lord Acton
Image
Before men can find peace and harmony within themselves they must first fall in love with their country.
Lord Acton
Image
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.
Lord Acton
Image
It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.
Lord Acton
Image
Feudalism made land the measure and the master of all things.
Lord Acton
Image
Authority that does not exist for Liberty is not authority but force.
Lord Acton