Lord Acton

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

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

The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.
Lord Acton - 1887
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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

It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in the masses which, if it is called into play, the minority can seldom resist. But from the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason.

The man who prefers his country before any other duty shows the same spirit as the man who surrenders every right to the state. They both deny that right is superior to authority.

Learn as much by writing as by reading.
Lord Acton - Letter to Mary Gladstone, 1881
The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern.
Lord Acton - in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, April 3, 1887.
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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

- Lord Acton