Lord Acton Quotes About Authority

Quotes about: Authority

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  Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

  Lord Acton

  Inspirational, Leadership, Work

  Letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 3 April 1887, in Louise Creighton 'Life and Letters of Mandell Creighton' (1904) vol. 1, ch. 13.

• Authority that does not exist for Liberty is not authority but force.

  Lord Acton

  Liberty, Doe, Authority

  "Essays in the History of Liberty: Selected Writings of Lord Acton, 3 vols". Book by John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1985-1988.

• Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.

  Lord Acton

  Government, Political, Essentials

• Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.

  Lord Acton

  Exercise, Men, Influence And Power

  "Historical Essays and Studies". Book by John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, oll.libertyfund.org. 1907.

• The true guide of our conduct is no outward authority, but the voice of God, who comes down to dwell in our souls, who knows all our thoughts, to whom are owing all the truth we know, and all the good we do; for vice is voluntary, and virtue comes from the grace of the heavenly spirit within.

  Lord Acton

  God, Voice, Grace

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton (2016). “The History of Freedom (and other Essays)”, p.46, Jazzybee Verlag

• 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.

  Lord Acton

  Country, Men, Ethos

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton (2016). “The History of Freedom (and other Essays)”, p.276, Jazzybee Verlag

• By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes to be his duty against the influences of authority and majorities, custom and opinion.

  Lord Acton

  Believe, Mean, Men

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton (2016). “The History of Freedom (and other Essays)”, p.30, Jazzybee Verlag

• Judge not according to the orthodox standard of a system religious, philosophical, political, but according as things promote, or fail to promote the delicacy, integrity, and authority of Conscience.

  Lord Acton

  Religious, Integrity, Philosophical

  "Historical Essays and Studies". Book by John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, oll.libertyfund.org. 1907.

• The epoch of doubt and transition during which the Greeks passed from the dim fancies of mythology to the fierce light of science was the age of Pericles, and the endeavour to substitute certain truth for the prescriptions of impaired authorities, which was then beginning to absorb the energies of the Greek intellect, is the grandest movement in the profane annals of mankind, for to it we owe, even after the immeasurable progress accomplished by Christianity, much of our philosophy and far the better part of the political knowledge we possess.

  Lord Acton

  Philosophy, Light, Political

  Lord Acton (2016). “The History of Freedom: Great Event”, p.7, VM eBooks

• Whenever a single definite object is made the supreme end of the State, be it the advantage of a class, the safety of the power of the country, the greatest happiness of the greatest number, or the support of any speculative idea, the State becomes for the time inevitably absolute. Liberty alone demands for its realization the limitation of the public authority, for liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition.

  Lord Acton

  Country, Class, Ideas

  Lord Acton (2016). “The History of Freedom: Great Event”, p.239, VM eBooks

• Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority...

  Lord Acton

  Exercise, Men, Influence And Power

  "Historical Essays and Studies". Book by John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, oll.libertyfund.org. 1907.

• The fate of every democracy, of every government based on the sovereignty of the people, depends on the choices it makes between these opposite principles, absolute power on the one hand, and on the other the restraints of legality and the authority of tradition.

  Lord Acton

  Fate, Government, Hands

• It was from America that the plain ideas that men ought to mind their business, and that the nation is responsible to Heaven for the acts of the State, - ideas long locked in the breast of solitary thinkers, and hidden among Latin folios, - burst forth like a conqueror upon the world they were destined to transform, under the title of the Rights of Man... and the principle gained ground, that a nation can never abandon its fate to an authority it cannot control.

  Lord Acton

  Latin, Fate, Men

  "The History of Freedom in Antiquity". Lord Acton's opening statement of his speech on February 28, 1877; later quoted in "The History of Freedom and Other Essays" edited by John Neville Figgis and Reginald Vere Laurence, 1907.

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