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Famous Lord Acton Quotes
“Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.”
“A people averse to the institution of private property is without the first elements of freedom”
“Fanaticism in religion is the alliance of the passions she condemns with the dogmas she professes.”
“Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority...”
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
“History provides neither compensation for suffering nor penalties for wrong.”
“Save for the wild force of Nature, nothing moves in this world that is not Greek in its origin.”
“History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.”
“The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern: every class is unfit to govern.”
“The long term versus the short term argument is one used by losers.”
“Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.”
“There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men.”
“History is the arbiter of controversy, the monarch of all she surveys.”
“It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.”
“History, to be above evasion or dispute, must stand on documents, not on opinions.”
“To develop and perfect and arm conscience is the great achievement of history.”
“Good and evil lie close together. Seek no artistic unity in character.”
“No public character has ever stood the revelation of private utterance and correspondence.”
“Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right of being able to do what we ought.”
“Character is tested by true sentiments more than by conduct. A man is seldom better than his word.”