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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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History, to be above evasion or dispute, must stand on documents, not on opinions.
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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.
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Save for the wild force of Nature, nothing moves in this world that is not Greek in its origin.
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Property is not the sacred right. When a rich man becomes poor it is a misfortune, it is not a moral evil. When a poor man becomes destitute, it is a moral evil, teeming with consequences and injurious to society and morality.
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Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.
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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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Machiavelli's teaching would hardly have stood the test of Parliamentary government, for public discussion demands at least the profession of good faith.
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Political differences essentially depend on disagreement in moral principles.
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History provides neither compensation for suffering nor penalties for wrong.
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At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities.
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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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History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.
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A generous spirit prefers that his country should be poor, and weak, and of no account, but free, rather than powerful, prosperous, and enslaved.
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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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A government does not desire its powers to be strictly defined, but the subjects require the line to be drawn with increasing precision.
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Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.
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The strong man with the dagger is followed by the weak man with the sponge.
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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.
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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.
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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