Lord Acton Quotes

In the long and dogged crusade that the human race has fought in favor of democracy, the ideal of liberty, of freedom, has always been the goal.

Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.

I would just like to say something, ladies and gentlemen. Something that I think is very important. It is that, you, we - we own this country. We - we own it. It is not you owning it, and not politicians owning it. Politicians are employees of ours.

The end of all political associations is, the preservation of the rights of man, which rights are liberty, property, and security; that the nation is the source of all sovereignty derived from it...

A man may be voted a bore or shunned as a pest, and yet he must be accorded the rights to which he is entitled by virtue of being a representative of the people.

Individual liberty depends upon keeping government under control.

it is the people who control the Government, not the Government the people.

Freedom unexercised may be freedom forfeited. The preservation of freedom is in the hands of the people themselves - not of the government.

Democracy is based on the conviction that man has the moral and intellectual capacity, as well as the inalienable right, to govern himself with reason and justice.

Political freedom is, or ought to be, the best guaranty for the safety and continuance of spiritual, mental, and civil freedom. It is the combination of numbers to secure the liberty to each one.

Freedom is popular. Bring it on.

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.

The democratic process is only as great as the people who participate in it.

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

A government of, for and by the people, requires much from the people.

We, as citizens, are the true owners of government.

Someone who is a good person should have no fear of the government whatsoever.

The whole idea of a democracy is that we ourselves, the people, are supposed to make a path of our politics, and it is we who with our feet and our vote and our labors and our vigilance are supposed to shape our country.

I think it is the responsibility of a citizen of any country to say what he thinks.

Individual rights always go along with the interests of the society. I want to add that in Vietnam we have no political prisoners. No one is arrested or jailed for his or her speech or point of view. They are put in jail because they violated the law.

In survey after survey, the Iraqi people say, 'We want to choose our leaders.'

We create our own government. We are responsible for its beauty and for its ugliness. We are responsible for its glories and for its failures and, most important, we are responsible for amending those failures no matter who are their most immediate architects.

America stands for individual liberty, but that means an ordered liberty.

The government serves the people - not vice-versa.

The submission of free people to the executive authority of government, is no more than a compliance with laws which they themselves have enacted.