Quote #9
Advice to Persons About to Write History - Don't.
Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.
More from John Acton
- There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.
- Liberty is the prevention of control by others. This requires self-control and, therefore, religious and spiritual influences; education, k…
- I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they did not wrong. If th…
- The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.
- There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men. Imagine a congress of eminent celebrities, such as Mor…
- Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime...
- The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern. The law of liberty tends to abolish the reign…
- At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating th…