Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Lord Acton
Never
Findings
Finding
Mankind
Passion
Sure
Threaten
Others
Continuing
Power
Allies
Always
Cease

More quotes by Lord Acton

Image
Every error pronounces judgment on itself when it attempts to apply its rules to the standard of truth.
Lord Acton
Image
Socialism means slavery.
Lord Acton
Image
I'm not a driven businessman, but a driven artist. I never think about money. Beautiful things make money.
Lord Acton
Image
In every age its (liberty's) progress has been beset by its natural enemies, by ignorance and superstition, by lust of conquest and by love of ease, by the strong man's craving for power, and the poor man's craving for food
Lord Acton
Image
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
Image
Men cannot be made good by the state, but they can easily be made bad. Morality depends on liberty.
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
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
Feudalism made land the measure and the master of all things.
Lord Acton
Image
A government does not desire its powers to be strictly defined, but the subjects require the line to be drawn with increasing precision.
Lord Acton
Image
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.
Lord Acton
Image
The strong man with the dagger is followed by the weak man with the sponge.
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
The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.
Lord Acton
Image
The mills of God grind slowly.
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
Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.
Lord Acton
Image
To develop and perfect and arm conscience is the great achievement of history.
Lord Acton
Image
Remember that one touch of ill-nature makes the whole world kin.
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