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The test of liberty is the position and security of minorities.

Lord Acton

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Lord Acton
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More quotes by 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.
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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.
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Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.
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Official truth is not actual truth.
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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.
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Advice to Persons About to Write History - Don't.
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Political differences essentially depend on disagreement in moral principles.
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It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.
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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.
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The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.
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There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men.
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Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.
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Every error pronounces judgment on itself when it attempts to apply its rules to the standard of truth.
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It is dangerous, at any time, to multiply sources of weakness.
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A man can be trusted only up to low-water mark.
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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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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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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
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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 mills of God grind slowly.
Lord Acton