Lord Acton Quotes

There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.

Live both in the future and the past. Who does not live in the past does not live in the future.

At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities.

Save for the wild force of Nature, nothing moves in this world that is not Greek in its origin.

Machiavelli's teaching would hardly have stood the test of Parliamentary government, for public discussion demands at least the profession of good faith.

The man who prefers his country before any other duty shows the same spirit as the man who surrenders every right to the state. They both deny that right is superior to authority.

Absolute power demoralizes.

Truth is the only merit that gives dignity and worth to history.

There is not a more perilous or immoral habit of mind than the sanctifying of success.

Liberty is the prevention of control by others. This requires self-control and, therefore, religious and spiritual influences; education, knowledge, well-being.

Every class is unfit to govern.

The long term versus the short term argument is one used by losers.

Those who have more power are liable to sin more; no theorem in geometry is more certain than this.

A government does not desire its powers to be strictly defined, but the subjects require the line to be drawn with increasing precision.

I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo.

Liberty is the prevention of control by others.

A people averse to the institution of private property is without the first elements of freedom

Democracy generally monopolizes and concentrates power.

Ink was not invented to express our real feelings.

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.

From the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason.

There should be a law to the People besides its own will.

Liberty is the harmony between the will and the law.

Be generous before you are just. Do not temper mercy with justice.

I have reached the end of my time, and have hardly come to the beginning of my task.

Character is tested by true sentiments more than by conduct. A man is seldom better than his word.

Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.

Political differences essentially depend on disagreement in moral principles.

Many things are better for silence than for speech: others are better for speech than for stationery.

Good and evil lie close together. Seek no artistic unity in character.

We are not sure we are right until we have made the best case possible for those who are wrong.

Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.

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.

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 the powers they have ceded.

Piety sometimes gives birth to scruples, and faith to superstition, when they are not directed by wisdom and knowledge.

Do not turn yourself from an end into a means-one does not justify the other.

False principles, which correspond with the bad as well as with the just aspirations of mankind, are a normal and necessary element in the social life of nations.

The few have not strength to achieve great changes unaided; the many have not wisdom to be moved by truth unmixed.

A man can be trusted only up to low-water mark.

History is not only a particular branch of knowledge, but a particular mode and method of knowledge in other branches.

Everybody likes to get as much power as circumstances allow, and nobody will vote for a self-denying ordinance.

The law of liberty tends to abolish the reign of race over race, of faith over faith, of class over class. It is not the realisation of a political ideal: it is the discharge of a moral obligation.

Judge not according to the orthodox standard of a system religious, philosophical, political, but according as things promote, or fail to promote the delicacy, integrity, and authority of Conscience.

Remember that one touch of ill-nature makes the whole world kin.

Self-preservation and self-denial: the basis of all political economy.

Many men can no more be kept straight by spiritual motives than we can live without policemen.

It is very easy to speak words of wisdom from a comfortable distance, when one sees no reality, no details, none of the effect on men's minds.

Before men can find peace and harmony within themselves they must first fall in love with their country.

History is the arbiter of controversy, the monarch of all she surveys.