John Acton Quotes

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

John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

#2. Liberty is the prevention of control by others.

John Acton

#3. The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.

John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

#4. My parents met in music school and my father was a music professor and conductor. Growing up, we always had classical and contemporary music playing. There was a lot of Mozart and the Beatles.

Sara Zarr

#5. Far from being the product of a democratic revolution and of an opposition to English institutions, the constitution of the United States was the result of a powerful reaction against democracy, and in favor of the traditions of the mother country.

John Acton

#6. We're about winning and accountability.

Bob McNair

#7. 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.

John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

#8. History provides neither compensation for suffering nor penalties for wrong.

John Acton

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

John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

#10. Every patient tends to bury the most important story inside some other story, just the way new writers often 'bury the lede.' 'Burying the lede' is an old journalism term for when you only find out the real point about halfway into the article, but it also applies to therapy.

Gina Barreca

#11. Be not content with the best book; seek sidelights from the others; have no favourites.

John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

#12. The object of civil society is justice, not truth, virtue, wealth, knowledge, glory or power. Justice is followed by equality and liberty.

John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

#13. By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes is his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion.

John Acton

#14. power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutley

John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

#15. When you perceive a truth, look for the balancing truth.

John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

#16. Everybody likes to get as much power as circumstances allow, and nobody will vote for a self-denying ordinance.

John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

#17. Great men are almost always bad men.

John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

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

John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

#19. The greatest men, you can quote for everything.

John Acton

#20. I don't intentionally make my films with the express goal of surprising the viewer.

Bong Joon-ho

#21. The fate of every democracy, of every government based on the sovereignty of the people, depends on the choices it makes between these opposite principles, absolute power on the one hand, and on the other the restraints of legality and the authority of tradition.

John Acton

#22. Judge talent at its best but character at its worst.

John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

#23. By a series of violent shocks, the nations in succession have struggled to shake off the Past, to reverse the action of Time and the verdict of success, and to rescue the world from the reign of the dead.

John Acton

#24. If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation.

John Acton

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

John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

#26. Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.

John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

#27. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.

John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

#28. Liberty is the condition of duty, the guardian of conscience. It grows as conscience grows. The domains of both grow together. Liberty is safety from all hindrances, even sin. So that Liberty ends by being Free Will.

John Acton

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

John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

#30. A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times.

John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

#31. It is in the perfect union of two hearts that complete and total marriage consists.

Bernard Of Clairvaux