Top 15 John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton Quotes

A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely

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

Learn as much by writing as by reading.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

When you perceive a truth, look for the balancing truth.

Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.

Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right of being able to do what we ought.

Judge talent at its best but character at its worst.

The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.

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. 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 enjoyed by minorities

The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.

Great men are almost always bad men.