Quotes from Lord Acton

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

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

History, to be above evasion or dispute, must stand on documents, not on opinions.

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

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

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 that universal commonwealth which embraces all the world, brethren of one family, and children of God.

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

I talk nonsense at times, because sense is monotonous.

Judge talent at its best and character at its worst.

Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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.

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

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.

Neither an enlightened philosophy, nor all the political wisdom of Rome, nor even the faith and virtue of the Christians availed against the incorrigible tradition of antiquity. Something was wanted, beyond all the gifts of reflection and experience -- a faculty of self government and self control, developed like its language in the fibre of a nation, and growing with its growth.

Be not content with the best book; seek sidelights from the others.

It won't do to shrink from hard speeches and judgments when they are necessary. But it is horrible to make them when one is not compelled.

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.

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

The light that has guided us is still unquenched, and the causes that have carried us so far in the van of free nations have not spent their power; because the story of the future is written in the past, and that which hath been is the same thing that shall be.

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

Popularity is best estimated by its quality and character; it is far better to conquer than to court it; to be indifferent to it than to be concerned about it.

Fanaticism displays itself in the masses; but the masses were rarely fanaticised; and the crimes ascribed to it were commonly due to the calculations of dispassionate politicians.

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 generation you consult will be more democratic and better instructed than our own; for the progress of democracy, though not constant, is certain, and the progress of knowledge is both constant and certain.