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Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.

Lord Acton

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Lord Acton
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Present
Literature
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Government

More quotes by 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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When you perceive a truth, look for the balancing truth.
Lord Acton
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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.
Lord Acton
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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.
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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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
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Before men can find peace and harmony within themselves they must first fall in love with their country.
Lord Acton
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Political differences essentially depend on disagreement in moral principles.
Lord Acton
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History is the arbiter of controversy, the monarch of all she surveys.
Lord Acton
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When the last of the Reformers died, religion, instead of emancipating the nations, had become an excuse for the criminal art of despots. Calvin preached, and Bellarmine lectured but Machiavelli reigned.
Lord Acton
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I'm not a driven businessman, but a driven artist. I never think about money. Beautiful things make money.
Lord Acton
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It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.
Lord Acton
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A public man has no right to let his actions be determined by particular interests. He does the same thing as a judge who accepts a bribe. Like a judge he must consider what is right, not what is advantageous to a party or class.
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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The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.
Lord Acton
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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.
Lord Acton
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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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The reward of history is that it releases and relieves us from present strife.
Lord Acton
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If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation.
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