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
Whenever a single definite object is made the supreme end of the State, be it the advantage of a class, the safety of the power of the country, the greatest happiness of the greatest number, or the support of any speculative idea, the State becomes for the time inevitably absolute. Liberty alone demands for its realization the limitation of the public authority, for liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition.
Writers the most learned, the most accurate in details, and the soundest in tendency, frequently fall into a habit which can neither be cured nor pardoned,-the habit of making history into the proof of their theories.
Before men can find peace and harmony within themselves they must first fall in love with their country.
Character is tested by true sentiments more than by conduct. A man is seldom better than his word.
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.
No public character has ever stood the revelation of private utterance and correspondence.
Good and evil lie close together. Seek no artistic unity in character.
To develop and perfect and arm conscience is the great achievement of 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.
The strong man with the dagger is followed by the weak man with the sponge.
Many men can no more be kept straight by spiritual motives than we can live without policemen.
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.
Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.
A people averse to the institution of private property is without the first elements of freedom