John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton Quotes

Do not open your minds to the filtering of the fallacious doctrine that it is less infamous to murder men for their politics than for their religion or their money, or that the courage to execute the deed is worse than the cowardice to excuse it. Let us not flinch from condemning without respite or remission, not only Marat and Carrier, but also Barnave. Because there may be hanging matter in the lives of illustrious men, of William the Silent and Farnese, of Cromwell and Napoleon, we are not to be turned from justice towards the actions, and still more the thoughts, of those whom we are about to study.
John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.
John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
The theory of the relations between states and churches is bound up with the theory of Toleratio, and on that suject the eighteenth century scarcely rose above an intermittend, embarrassed, and unscientific view. For religious liberty is composed of the properties both of religion and of liberty, and one of its factors never became an object of disinterested observation among actual leaders of opinion. They preferred the argument of doubt to the argument of certitude, and sought to defeat intolerance by casting out revelation as they had defeated the persecution of witches by casting out the devil. There remained a flaw in their liberalism, for liberty apart from belief is liberty with a good deal of the substance taken out of it. The problem is less complicated and the solution less radical and less profound.
John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
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
When you perceive a truth, look for the balancing truth.
John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.
John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton