A Quote by Lord Acton

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

Lord Acton

Quote Topics

Account Country Free Generous Generous Spirit His Poor Powerful Prosperous Rather Should Spirit Than Weak

Quote Author

Lord Acton
January 10, 1834 - June 19, 1902

Poor and free rather than rich and enslaved. Of course, men want to be both rich and free, and this is what leads them at times to be poor and enslaved.

Albert Camus

Sane is rich and powerful. Insane is wrong and poor and weak. The rich are free, the poor are put in cages. Res Ipsa Loquitur, amen. Mahalo.

Hunter S. Thompson

The prudent, penniless beginner in the world, labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land, for himself; then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This, say its advocates, is free labor-the just and generous, and prosperous system, which opens the way for all-gives hope to all, and energy, and progress, and improvement of condition to all.

Abraham Lincoln

Never pretend to have money except when you are in straits. The poor man who pretends to have a bank account betters his credit and takes no risk. But the prosperous individual who counts his money in the street, forthwith will be invited to attend a charity bazaar.

George Ade

I would prefer to be a citizen of an independent country rather than Emperor of an enslaved one.

Bao Dai

The Unitarian Church has done more than any other church to substitute character for creed, and to say that a man should be judged by his spirit; by the climate of his heart; by the autumn of his generosity; by the spring of his hope; that he should be judged by what he does; by the influence that he exerts, rather than by the mythology he may believe.

Robert Green Ingersoll

A theory deeply etched in our law [is that] a free society prefers to punish the few who abuse the rights of free speech after they break the law rather than to throttle them and all others beforehand.

Clarence Thomas

Can our culture be reclaimed? How can we stay free in the next century? While people of other countries have been restricted m to pursue prosperity, bounded only by the limits of his or her imagination. Besides, only a conservative would ask how we can STAY prosperous and free in the 21st century. A liberal would whine that only a few are prosperous-the evil rich who have somehow gotten rich off the backs of the poor.

Rush Limbaugh

Some authorities believe that one prosperous thought is more powerful than a thousand failure thoughts; and that two prosperous attitudes steadily held and expressed are more powerful than ten thousand failure attitudes!

Catherine Ponder

He who prefers to give Linus the half of what he wishes to borrow, rather than to lend him the whole, prefers to lose only the half.

Martial

I would have a man generous to his country, his neighbors, his kindred, his friends, and most of all his poor friends. Not like some who are most lavish with those who are able to give most of them.

Pliny the Elder

A country is considered the more civilised the more the wisdom and efficiency of its laws hinder a weak man from becoming too weak and a powerful one too powerful.

Primo Levi

The individual must not be allowed to be overly free, but the country must be entirely free. When the country can exercise freedom, China will have become a mighty and prosperous nation.

Sun Yat-sen

We would rather see London laid in ruins and ashes than that it should be tamely and abjectly enslaved.

Winston Churchill

Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness and pride of power and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear rather than too much. Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than they are doing now. Christian should take a stronger stand in favor of the weak rather than considering first the possible right of the strong.