Lord acton quotes

The true guide of our conduct is no outward authority, but the voice of God, who comes down to dwell in our souls, who knows all our thoughts, to whom are owing all the truth we know, and all the good we do; for vice is voluntary, and virtue comes from the grace of the heavenly spirit within.

Far from being the product of a democratic revolution and of an opposition to English institutions, the constitution of the United States was the result of a powerful reaction against democracy, and in favor of the traditions of the mother country.

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

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 mills of God grind slowly.

I'm not a driven businessman, but a driven artist. I never think about money. Beautiful things make money.

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

The epoch of doubt and transition during which the Greeks passed from the dim fancies of mythology to the fierce light of science was the age of Pericles, and the endeavour to substitute certain truth for the prescriptions of impaired authorities, which was then beginning to absorb the energies of the Greek intellect, is the grandest movement in the profane annals of mankind, for to it we owe, even after the immeasurable progress accomplished by Christianity, much of our philosophy and far the better part of the political knowledge we possess.

The possession of unlimited power corrodes the conscience, hardens the heart, and confounds the understanding.

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

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

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.

A liberal is only a bundle of prejudices until he has mastered, has understood, experienced the philosophy of Conservatism.

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.

The strong man with the dagger is followed by the weak man with the sponge.

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 or fraud, in carrying elections.

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 majority.

Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.

It is they [men of science] who hold the secret of the mysterious property of the mind by which error ministers to truth, and truth slowly but irrevocably prevails. Theirs is the logic of discovery, the demonstration of the advance of knowledge and the development of ideas, which as the earthly wants and passions of men remain almost unchanged, are the charter of progress, and the vital spark in history.

Liberty is the prevention of control by others.

The science of politics is the one science that is deposited by the streams of history, like the grains of gold in the sand of a river; and the knowledge of the past, the record of truths revealed by experience, is eminently practical, as an instrument of action and a power that goes to making the future.

If some great catastrophe is not announced every morning, we feel a certain void. Nothing in the paper today, we sigh.

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

It is easier to find people fit to govern themselves than people fit to govern others.

Though oppression may give rise to violent and repeated outbreaks, like the convulsions of a man in pain, it cannot mature a settled purpose and plan of regeneration, unless a new notion of happiness is joined to the sense of present evil.

Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.

Writers the most learned, the most accurate in details, and the soundest in tendency, frequently fall into a habit which can neither be cured nor pardoned,-the habit of making history into the proof of their theories.

Be not content with the best book; seek sidelights from the others; have no favourites.

The will of the people cannot make just that which is unjust.

Progress, the religion of those who have none.

For centuries it was never discovered that education was a function of the State, and the State never attempted to educate. But when modern absolutism arose, it laid claim to everything on behalf of the sovereign power....When the revolutionary theory of government began to prevail, and Church and State found that they were educating for opposite ends and in a contradictory spirit, it became necessary to remove children entirely from the influence of religion.

Socialism means slavery.

Fanaticism in religion is the alliance of the passions she condemns with the dogmas she professes.

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 a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.

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

The common vice of democracy is disregard for morality.

By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes to be his duty against the influences of authority and majorities, custom and opinion.

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

It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.

Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right of being able to do what we ought.

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

History provides neither compensation for suffering nor penalties for wrong.

It was from America that the plain ideas that men ought to mind their business, and that the nation is responsible to Heaven for the acts of the State, - ideas long locked in the breast of solitary thinkers, and hidden among Latin folios, - burst forth like a conqueror upon the world they were destined to transform, under the title of the Rights of Man... and the principle gained ground, that a nation can never abandon its fate to an authority it cannot control.

A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times.

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 feed the people. It cannot enrich the people. It cannot teach the people. It cannot convert the people.

Moral precepts are constant through the ages and not obedient to circumstances.

Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.

Learn as much by writing as by reading.

In every age its (liberty's) progress has been beset by its natural enemies, by ignorance and superstition, by lust of conquest and by love of ease, by the strong man's craving for power, and the poor man's craving for food

Property is not the sacred right. When a rich man becomes poor it is a misfortune, it is not a moral evil. When a poor man becomes destitute, it is a moral evil, teeming with consequences and injurious to society and morality.

Ink was not invented to express our real feelings.

Feudalism made land the measure and the master of all things.

When you perceive a truth, look for the balancing truth.

That great political idea, sanctifying freedom and consecrating it to God, teaching men to treasure the liberties of others as their own and to defend them for the love of justice and charity more than as a claim of right, has been the soul of what is great and good in the progress of the last two hundred years.

Democracy generally monopolizes and concentrates power.

Before God, there is neither Greek nor barbarian, neither rich nor poor, and the slave is as good as his master, for by birth all men are free; they are citizens of the universal commonwealth which embraces all the world, brethren of one family, and children of God.

It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in the masses which, if it is called into play, the minority can seldom resist. But from the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason.

The test of liberty is the position and security of minorities.

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

At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own; and this association, which is always dangerous, has sometimes been disastrous.

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.

In England Parliament is above the law. In America the law is above Congress.

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

Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime.

History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.

The idea that the object of constitutions is not to confirm the predominance of any interest, but to prevent it; to preserve with equal care the independence of labour and the security of property; to make the rich safe against envy, and the poor against oppression, marks the highest level attained by the statesmanship of Greece.

Liberty has not only enemies which it conquers, but perfidious friends, who rob the fruits of its victories: Absolute democracy, socialism.

Liberty is the harmony between the will and the law.

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.

I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they do no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way against holders of power...power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

No public character has ever stood the revelation of private utterance and correspondence.

Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.

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

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

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

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

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end...liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition...The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. ~ Every class is unfit to govern ... Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.

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

Men cannot be made good by the state, but they can easily be made bad. Morality depends on liberty.

The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern: every class is unfit to govern.

Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime, from the sowing of the seed at Athens, 2,460 years ago, until the ripened harvest was gathered by men of our race. It is the delicate fruit of a mature civilization; and scarcely a century has passed since nations, that knew the meaning of the term, resolved to be free. In every age its progress has been beset by its natural enemies, by ignorance and superstition, by lust of conquest and by love of ease, by the strong man's craving for power, and the poor man's craving for food.

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

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

When the last of the Reformers died, religion, instead of emancipating the nations, had become an excuse for the criminal art of despots. Calvin preached, and Bellarmine lectured; but Machiavelli reigned.

The principle of the Inquisition was murderous. . . . The popes were not only murderers in the great style, but they also made murder a legal basis of the Christian Church and a condition of salvation.

There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men.

A convinced man differs from a prejudiced man as an honest man from a liar.

Judge talent at its best and character at its worst.

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 has proven that.

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 qualities. They will not bear discussion.

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

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.

The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority.

The wisdom of divine rule appears not in the perfection but in the improvement of the world... History is the true demonstration of Religion.

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

Guard against the prestige of great names; see that your judgments are your own; and do not shrink from disagreement; no trusting without testing

Authority that does not exist for Liberty is not authority but force.

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.

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

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.

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

Political differences essentially depend on disagreement in moral principles.

Official truth is not actual truth.

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

A public man has no right to let his actions be determined by particular interests. He does the same thing as a judge who accepts a bribe. Like a judge he must consider what is right, not what is advantageous to a party or class.

The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.

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

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

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

If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation.

Every class is unfit to govern.

Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.

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 finest opportunity ever given to the world was thrown away because the passion of equality made vain the hope for freedom.

Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority...

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

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.

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

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

Great men are almost always bad men.

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

I exhort you never to debase the moral currency or to lower the standard of rectitude, but to try others by the final maxim that governs your own lives, and to suffer no man and no cause to escape the undying penalty which history has the power to inflict on wrong.

A generous spirit prefers that his country should be poor, and weak, and of no account, but free, rather than powerful, prosperous, and enslaved.

Socialism easily accepts despotism. It requires the strongest execution of power -- power sufficient to interfere with property.