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Government Quotes by Lord Acton
- The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern: every class is unfit to govern.
- Socialism means slavery.
- Machiavelli's teaching would hardly have stood the test of Parliamentary government, for public discussion demands at least the profession of good faith.
- Liberty and good government do not exclude each other; and there are excellent reasons why they should go together. Liberty is not a means to…
- 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…
- 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…
- Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.
- Federalism is the best curb on democracy. [It] assigns limited powers to the central government. Thereby all power is limited. It excludes absolute power of…
- The true natural check on absolute democracy is the federal system, which limits the central government by the powers reserved, and the state governments by…
- There are many things the government cant do, many good purposes it must renounce. It must leave them to the enterprise of others. It cannot…
- Government by idea tends to take in everything, to make the whole of society obedient to the idea. Spaces not so governed are unconquered, beyond…
More Government Quotes
- In 1994, when I went back to Haiti from exile, we established a Commission for Truth and Justice and Reconciliation. I passed… — Jean-Bertrand Aristide
- If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when… — Aristotle
- Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and… — Aristotle
- We have some material on spying by a major government on the tech industry. Industrial espionage. — Julian Assange
- Three groups spend other people's money: children, thieves, politicians. All three need supervision. — Dick Armey
- I am the constitutionally and legitimately elected sheriff, and I absolutely refuse to surrender my responsibility to the federal government. — Joe Arpaio
- The design of Rhetoric is to remove those Prejudices that lie in the way of Truth, to Reduce the Passions to the… — Mary Astell
- The problem with leaderless uprisings taking over is that you don't always know what you get at the other end. If you… — Chinua Achebe
- Television of course actually started in Britain in 1936, and it was a monopoly, and there was only one broadcaster and it… — David Attenborough
- In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery? — Saint Augustine
- Beginning to dismantle the Pentagon would save $1 trillion a year - a small government proposal if ever there was one. — Bill Ayers
- The average Nigerian person has come to reconcile himself with the fact that his or her social progress remain essentially in his… — Ibrahim Babangida