Lord Acton Quotes

At times those who won, 51 percent of the population claim the right to ride roughshod over the other 49 percent.

Liberty and equality do not … sit happily side by side. Indeed, in many respects they are in conflict.

Turbulence, violence, and abuse of power, by the majority trampling on the rights of the minority, have produced factions and commotions, which, in republics, have, more frequently than any other cause, produced despotism.

Sometimes great injustices may be inflicted on the minority when the majority is in the pursuit of a great and just cause.

The only tyrannies from which men, women and children are suffering in real life are the tyrannies of minorities.

I grew up with injustice and could do nothing about it. But once in America, I had freedom of choice.

If you allow one single germ, one single seed of slavery to remain in the soil of America... that germ will spring up, that noxious weed will thrive, and again stifle the growth, wither the leaves, blast the flowers and poison the fair fruits of freedom.

Democracy don't rule the world, You'd better get that in your head; This world is ruled by violence, But I guess that's better left unsaid.

A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; power is ever stealing from the many to the few.

Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.

One Law for the Lion and the Ox is oppression.

The price of freedom is less than the cost of repression.

A heavy aristocracy and corruption are two bridles in the mouths of a people which will prevent them from making any effectual efforts against their masters.

All societies, including societies called democratic, are ruled by a minority.

The majority are not morally free to become a tyranny and destroy the rights of minorities.

As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression.

Liberty without equality is a name of noble sound and squalid result.

The history of most countries has been that of majorities—mounted majorities, clad in iron, armed with death, treading down the tenfold more numerous minorities.

The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.

The difference between being out of step with a dictator and being out of step with the democratic majority is practically negligible. The important thing is to be in step.

When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, ... that is tyranny.

Take away political freedom from a race, and you have a group of slaves.

When the people are sheep, the government is always a wolf.

The experience of the past one hundred and fifty years has revealed the danger that, through judicial interpretation, the constitutional device for the protection of minorities from oppressive majority action, may be made the means by which the majority is subject to the tyranny of the minority.