Quotes from Lord Acton

You see so many interesting and eminent men that you can spare a miss sometimes.

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

Meekness is the chief grace and perfection of the soul.

The danger of reading too much is that we shall have only the thoughts of others. The danger of reading too little or none at all, that we shall have none but our own.

Although ink was not invented to express our real feelings, I improve my first stoppage between two trains to thank you for three such delightful days in London. It was a shame to take up so much of your busy time, and to persecute you with the serpentine wisdom. I did not wish to turn into bitterness the sweetest thing on earth, but I fancied that there are things good to be observed in your great position which nobody will tell you if you do not hear them from the most wicked of your friends.

The inner reality of history is so unlike the back of the cards, and it takes so long to get at it, which does not prevent us from disbelieving what is current as history, but makes us wish to sift it, and dig through mud to solid foundations.

To spend and lose a majority in some great cause, to be abused and ridiculed and calumniated, seems to the writer a misfortune so great that it is worth while to haul down one's flag rather than incur the risk of it. This is the power of journalism, of salons and club life, which teaches people to depend on popularity and success and not on the guide within, to act not from knowledge, but from opinion, and to be led by opinion of others rather than by knowledge which is their own.

Now there is a source of future weakness in the idea of power assumed only for a term limited and defined. A Parliament near its end becomes helpless and unable to act. When the period fixed, or supposed to be fixed, is approaching, power will slip away. Disappointed people, men impatient of having to wait, hungry, jealous, reluctant supporters, will gravitate in other directions, will promote rivalry, will speed the parting chief, will magnify the rising sun.

It must be confessed, however, that sentiment is the charm, as it always is the affection of mediocrity, which, without it, would often be insufferable, and yet with it, is as often ridiculous.

In a doctrine so simple, consistency is no merit.

It is dangerous, at any time, to multiply sources of weakness.

There is a grain of truth in the notion that the force that creates, and sustains in a crisis, is not quite the same that is wanted in time of prose to continue and to preserve; or in other words, that creative power makes a great consumptive of party resources.

I am ashamed to tell you how much I should like to hear from you, because you will suspect that I only want a supplement to the Times, or a later edition of the Echo.

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

I want to be vigilant not to resent, but to pursue the work of disarming resentment.

The Liberal party is held together, not by forces within, but by a force above it. It consists, like the being that declined a chair, of two wings and a head.

We prefer to avoid men, and to shun the world, in order that we may seek in retirement, the only peace that is possessing, the only happiness which is left us to enjoy.

The barbarians, who possessed no books, no secular knowledge, no education, except in the schools of the clergy, and who had scarcely acquired the rudiments of religious instruction, turned with childlike attachment to men whose minds were stored with the knowledge of Scripture, of Cicero, of St. Augustine; and in the scanty world of their ideas, the Church was felt to be something infinitely vaster, stronger, holier than their newly founded States.

Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral laws are written on the table of eternity.

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

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

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

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

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