Essays on Freedom and Power Quotes

“Absolute power corrupts absolutely”
― Lord Acton, Essays on Freedom and Power

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
― Lord Acton, Essays on Freedom and Power

“If the distribution of power among the several parts of the State is the most efficient restraint on monarchy, the distribution of power among several States is the best check on democracy..”
― Lord Acton (John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton), Essays on Freedom and Power

“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.”
― Lord Acton (John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton), Essays on Freedom and Power

“A Christian is bound by his very creed to suspect evil, and cannot release himself. His religion has brought evil to light in a way in which it never 'was before; it has shown its depth, subtlety, ubiquity; and a revelation, full of mercy on the one hand, is terrible in its exposure of the world's real state on the other. The Gospel fastens the sense of evil upon the mind; a Christian is enlightened, hardened, sharpened, as to evil; he sees it where others do not. . . . . He owns the doctrine of original sin; that doctrine puts him necessarily on his guard against all appearances, sustains his apprehension under perplexity, and prepares him for recognizing anywhere what he knows to be everywhere.”
― John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, Essays on Freedom and Power

“If you will bear in mind that Socrates, the best of the pagans, knew
of no higher criterion for men, of no better guide of conduct, than the
laws of each country; that Plato, whose sublime doctrine was so near an
anticipation of Christianity that celebrated theologians wished his works
to be forbidden, lest men should be content with them, and indifferent to
any higher dogma —​​​​​​​to whom was granted that prophetic vision of the
Just Man, accused, condemned and scourged, and dying on a Cross —​​​​​​​
nevertheless employed the most splendid intellect ever bestowed on man
to advocate the abolition of the family and the exposure of infants; that
Aristotle, the ablest moralist of antiquity, saw no harm in making raids
upon a neighbouring people, for the sake of reducing them to slavery —​​​​​​​
still more, if you will consider that, among the moderns, men of genius
equal to these have held political doctrines not less criminal or absurd
—​​​​​​​it will be apparent to you how stubborn a phalanx of error blocks the
paths of truth”
― Lord Acton (John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton), Essays on Freedom and Power