Lord Acton

Guard against the prestige of great names; see that your judgments are your own; and do not shrink from disagreement; no trusting without testing

Government by idea tends to take in everything, to make the whole of society obedient to the idea. Spaces not so governed are unconquered, beyond the border, unconverted, a future danger.

No public character has ever stood the revelation of private utterance and correspondence.

Democracy generally monopolizes and concentrates power.

Official truth is not actual truth.

There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.

Character is tested by true sentiments more than by conduct. A man is seldom better than his word.

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

Good and evil lie close together. Seek no artistic unity in character.

History, to be above evasion or dispute, must stand on documents, not on opinions.

If some great catastrophe is not announced every morning, we feel a certain void. Nothing in the paper today, we sigh.

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

Learn as much by writing as by reading.

Machiavelli's teaching would hardly have stood the test of Parliamentary government, for public discussion demands at least the profession of good faith.

History provides neither compensation for suffering nor penalties for wrong.

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