Great men are almost always bad men.
Lord ActonRead
Live both in the future and the past. Who does not live in the past does not live in the future.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the importance of learning from the past while also preparing for the future.
Lord Acton's quote reflects on the necessity of acknowledging and understanding our past experiences and how they shape our future. By appreciating our history, we gain insights that can guide our decisions and actions moving forward, suggesting that a balanced perspective between past and future is essential for a fulfilling life.
Themes
FuturePastLifeLearningInsight
In practice
Example use cases
During a graduation speech, one might say this quote to inspire students to reflect on their journey and plan their future.
More from Lord Acton
All quotes βSave for the wild force of Nature, nothing moves in this world that is not Greek in its origin.
Lord ActonRead
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Lord ActonRead
Liberty and good government do not exclude each other; and there are excellent reasons why they should go together. Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
Lord ActonRead
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end...liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition...The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. ~ Every class is unfit to govern ... Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.
Lord ActonRead
Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.
Lord ActonRead
Similar quotes
We now think it hilarious that medieval streets were used as open sewers. Equally, our descendants will say: 'You won't believe this, but people were once allowed to hurl a couple of tons of dangerous metal around smashing into each other.'
Norman FosterRead
If at any time all labour should cease, and all existing provisions be equally divided among the people, at the end of a single year there could scarcely be one human being left alive--all would have perished by want of subsistence.
Abraham LincolnRead
If you want to prove that God is not dead, first prove that man is alive.
Rod SerlingRead
Law has become a business. Health care has become a business. Unfortunately, politics has also become a business. That really undermines society.
George SorosRead
Everything we do these days - our lust for ever more comfort, pleasure, and distraction, our refusal to engage with the mandates of reality, our fidelity to cults of technology and limitless growth, our narcissistic national exceptionalism - all of this propels us toward the realm where souls abandon all hope.
James Howard KunstlerRead
He only deserves to be remembered by posterity who treasures up and preserves the history of his ancestors.
Edmund BurkeRead