Lord Acton

Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it's when you've had everything to do, and you've done it.

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

There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.

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

Learn as much by writing as by reading.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.