Lord Acton Quotes

Imagine a congress of eminent celebrities such as More Bacon Grotius Pascal Cromwell Bossuet Montesquieu Jefferson Napoleon Pitt etc. They would be an Encyclopedia of Errors.

~ Lord Acton

Good and evil lie close together. Seek no artistic unity in character.

~ Lord Acton

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

~ Lord Acton

There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men. Imagine a congress of eminent celebrities such as More Bacon Grotius Pascal Cromwell Bossuet Montesquieu Jefferson Napoleon Pitt etc. The result would be an Encyclopedia of Errors.

~ Lord Acton

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

~ Lord Acton

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

~ Lord Acton

Learn as much by writing as by reading.

~ Lord Acton

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

~ Lord Acton

And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that.

~ Lord Acton

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

~ Lord Acton

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

~ Lord Acton

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.

~ Lord Acton

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

~ Lord Acton

Socialism means slavery.

~ Lord Acton

To be able to look back upon one's past life with satisfaction is to live twice.

~ Lord Acton

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

~ Lord Acton