Lord Acton
Lord Acton
John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, KCVO DL—known as Sir John Dalberg-Acton, 8th Baronet from 1837 to 1869 and usually referred to simply as Lord Acton—was an English Catholic historian, politician, and writer. He was the only son of Sir Ferdinand Dalberg-Acton, 7th Baronet and a grandson of the Neapolitan admiral Sir John Acton, 6th Baronet. He is perhaps best known for the remark, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth10 January 1834
Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.
Political differences essentially depend on disagreement in moral principles.
The reward of history is that it releases and relieves us from present strife.
The strong man with the dagger is followed by the weak man with the sponge.
Every error pronounces judgment on itself when it attempts to apply its rules to the standard of truth.
Many men can no more be kept straight by spiritual motives than we can live without policemen.
In England Parliament is above the law. In America the law is above Congress.
Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.
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 realization of a political ideal; it is the discharge of a moral obligation.
I saw in States' rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy.... Therefore I deemed that you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization, and I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo.
We are not sure we are right until we have made the best case possible for those who are wrong.
Towns were the nursery of freedom.
The test of liberty is the position and security of minorities.
Piety sometimes gives birth to scruples, and faith to superstition, when they are not directed by wisdom and knowledge.