Lord Acton Quotes

The bad guys don't always get punished and the good guys are not necessarily pure.

Wrong people are wrong not because of their faults but because of their presumed virtues.

I think it's unfair, but they have the right as fallible, screwed-up humans to be unfair; that's the human condition.

As a rule, there is no surer way to the dislike of men than to behave well where they have behaved badly.

There's always something suspect about an intellectual on the winning side.

A radical shift in policy brings almost as many injustices in its train as does the continuance of a policy that has outlived its usefulness.

A strong memory is generally joined to a weak judgment.

I always try to find something I like about the bad guys and then try to find the mistakes and the flaws in the good guys.

It is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.

And if you ask again whether there is any justice in the world, you'll have to be satisfied with the reply: Not for the time being; at any rate, not up to this Friday.

The strength of criticism lies in the weakness of the thing criticized.

We can no more tolerate neutrality and benevolence toward every conceivable form of discourse, including that of magical thinking, than we can lump together executioner and victim, good and evil.

I do think that this planet is a totally unjust planet. I mean throughout history - history paints a beautiful picture when it's written by the victorious, but it's a planet that belongs to the strong and the more able, and usually they are tyrants. So basically, I don't see justice happening to the crushed and the weak.

Fully consider the future and the immediate results of all undertakings, and the good and bad sides of all past actions.

A bloody battle leaves even the victor bloodied. But compromise also has its costs—particularly when it alienates the majority and is taken as a sign of weakness.

The rankest form of hypocrisy. Laws that are good enough for everybody else ought to be good enough for us.

One cannot always be right in our complex world; no dishonor attends an incorrect choice among plausible outcomes drawn from a properly constructed argument.

Oh wearisome condition of humanity—born under one law, to another bound.

The fact that a man is driven back on feelings and instincts to justify an action or course of action which he has thought over and discussed, is good evidence that what he calls his feelings and instincts are at variance with his better judgment … and may therefore be worthless or dangerous guides in any wider matter involving the fate of his country or his fellow-countrymen.

I don't think we ought to base our policy on what the conventional wisdom is.... The conventional wisdom usually is wrong.

And do not acquiesce to the unjust …

It is much easier to make the speeches than to finally make the judgments.

To prejudge other men's notions before we have looked into them is not to show the darkness but to put out our own eyes.

I don’t attack people. I attack ideas. And some very good people can have some very bad ideas.

Avoid false choices driven by ideology.