Lord Acton Quotes - Page 5

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

To develop and perfect and arm conscience is the great achievement of history.

There is not a soul who does not have to beg alms of another, either a smile, a handshake, or a fond eye.

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

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.

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.

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.

The State is competent to assign duties and draw the line between good and evil only in its immediate sphere. Beyond the limits of things necessary for its well-being, it can only give indirect help to fight the battle of life by promoting the influences which prevail against temptation--religion, education, and the distribution of wealth.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.