John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton Quotes

• I’m not a driven businessman, but a driven artist. I never think about money. Beautiful things make money.

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

  Topics in Business, Money

  Tags in Artist

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

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

  Topics in Country

  Tags in Minorities, Security

• The long term versus the short term argument is one used by losers.

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Losers, Argument

• The greatest men, you can quote for everything.

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Greatest, Everything

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

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

  Topics in Power

  Tags in Liberty, Right

• The science of politics is the one science that is deposited by the streams of history, like the grains of gold in the sand of a river; and the knowledge of the past, the record of truths revealed by experience, is eminently practical, as an instrument of action and a power that goes to making the future.

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

  Topics in Experience, Knowledge

  Tags in Deposited, Grains, Gold

• To be able to look back upon one’s past life with satisfaction is to live twice.

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Action

• Far from being the product of a democratic revolution and of an opposition to English institutions, the constitution of the United States was the result of a powerful reaction against democracy, and in favor of the traditions of the mother country.

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

  Topics in Country

  Tags in Traditions, Democratic, Powerful

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

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

  Topics in Power

• The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the party that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

  Topics in Democracy, Politics

  Tags in Elections

• History is not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

  Topics in History, Memory, Soul

  Tags in Burden, Illumination

• Liberty is the prevention of control by others. This requires self-control and, therefore, religious and spiritual influences; education, knowledge, well-being.

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

  Topics in Education, Knowledge

  Tags in Self-Control, Liberty, Religious, Spiritual

• Socialism means slavery.

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

  Tags in Socialism

• There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men.

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

  Tags in Errors

• There is not a soul who does not have to beg alms of another, either a smile, a handshake, or a fond eye.

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

  Topics in Smile, Soul

  Tags in Either, Beg

• By a series of violent shocks, the nations in succession have struggled to shake off the Past, to reverse the action of Time and the verdict of success, and to rescue the world from the reign of the dead.

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

  Tags in Verdict, Reign, Reverse, Struggled

• History provides neither compensation for suffering nor penalties for wrong.

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

  Topics in Suffering

  Tags in Compensation, Penalties

• If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation.

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

  Tags in Obstacle, Emancipation, Safest

• 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.

  John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

  Tags in Authority, Tradition, Restraints, Opposite, Legality

John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton (39)

Birth:	10th January, 1834
Death:	19th June, 1902
Nationality:	British
Profession:	Historian, Politician

About

John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton was born in Naples, Italy. He was an English Catholic historian, politician and author. From 1837 to 1869 he was known as Sir John Dalberg-Acton, 8th Baronet. He studied at the University of Munich. He was a professor of Modern History at Cambridge University from 1895-1902. He was a Member of Parliament for Carlow Borough, and for Bridgnorth. He wrote several books include: Lectures on Modern History, The History of Freedom, Historical Essays and Studies, Lectures on the French Revolution, A Lecture on the Study of History, and The Cambridge Modern History.

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