Lord Acton – 14 Quotes

14 Quotes by Lord Acton

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

– Lord Acton

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

– 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

Machiavelli’s teaching would hardly have stood the test of Parliamentary government, for public discussion demands at least the profession of good faith.

– Lord Acton

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

– 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

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

– 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

Save for the wild force of Nature, nothing moves in this world that is not Greek in its origin.

– 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

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

– 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

Property is not the sacred right. When a rich man becomes poor it is a misfortune, it is not a moral evil. When a poor man becomes destitute, it is a moral evil, teeming with consequences and injurious to society and morality.

– Lord Acton