Top 125 Quotes & Sayings by Lord Acton

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

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.

Judge talent at its best and character at its worst.

Democracy generally monopolizes and concentrates power.

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.

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

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.

Progress, the religion of those who have none.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.

Official truth is not actual truth.

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

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.

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

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.

Great men are almost always bad men.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

The mills of God grind slowly.

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

Every class is unfit to govern.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

The common vice of democracy is disregard for morality.

Ink was not invented to express our real feelings.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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

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.

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

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