Lord Acton Quotes

96 quotes in 1087 categories

• 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.
• Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
• If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation.
• Liberty is the prevention of control by others.
• The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.
• And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History…
• I'm not a driven businessman, but a driven artist. I never think about money. Beautiful things make money.
• The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.
• The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force…
• Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral laws are written on the table of eternity.
• Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.
• 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.
• Socialism means slavery.
• The long term versus the short term argument is one used by losers.
• Machiavelli's teaching would hardly have stood the test of Parliamentary government, for public discussion demands at least the profession of good faith.
• There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary…
• Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
• A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times.

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