Quote

We are not sure we are right until we have made the best case possible for those who are wrong.

Lord Acton

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Lord Acton
Case
Cases
Possible
Sure
Wrong
Best
Right
Made

More quotes by Lord Acton

Image
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
Image
If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation.
Lord Acton
Image
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Lord Acton
Image
The fate of every democracy, of every government based on the sovereignty of the people, depends on the choices it makes between these opposite principles, absolute power on the one hand, and on the other the restraints of legality and the authority of tradition.
Lord Acton
Image
A man can be trusted only up to low-water mark.
Lord Acton
Image
When you perceive a truth, look for the balancing truth.
Lord Acton
Image
If some great catastrophe is not announced every morning, we feel a certain void. Nothing in the paper today, we sigh.
Lord Acton
Image
The test of liberty is the position and security of minorities.
Lord Acton
Image
The science of politics is the one science that is deposited by the streams of history, like the grains of gold in the sand of a river and the knowledge of the past, the record of truths revealed by experience, is eminently practical, as an instrument of action and a power that goes to making the future.
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
The wisdom of divine rule appears not in the perfection but in the improvement of the world... History is the true demonstration of Religion.
Lord Acton
Image
The form of government and the condition of society must always correspond. Social equality is therefore a postulate of pure democracy.
Lord Acton
Image
Advice to Persons About to Write History - Don't.
Lord Acton
Image
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
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
A generous spirit prefers that his country should be poor, and weak, and of no account, but free, rather than powerful, prosperous, and enslaved.
Lord Acton
Image
History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.
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
It is easier to find people fit to govern themselves than people fit to govern others.
Lord Acton
Image
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