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Quote by Lord Acton

“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.”

Quote by Lord Acton

Author

Lord Acton
Lord Acton

British historian and political theorist, renowned for his profound insights into the relationship between freedom, power, and corruption. Lord Acton was one of the most influential thinkers of the Victorian era, and his works are still widely cited today. more

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“Whenever a single definite object is made the supreme end of the State, be it the advantage of a class, the safety of the power of the country, the greatest happiness of the greatest number, or the support of any speculative idea, the State becomes for the time inevitably absolute. Liberty alone demands for its realization the limitation of the public authority, for liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition.”