Lord Acton Quotes

I am profoundly disturbed by any attempt to take government responsibility away from government … it is government’s responsibility to educate all of our children …. The fundamental responsibility for poverty of this country does not belong to the churches; it belongs to the government.

Men must be aggressive for what is right if government is to be saved from men who are aggressive for what is wrong.

The first duty of a government is to give education to the people.

Americans understand we fight not a religion; ours is not a campaign against the Muslim faith. Ours is a campaign against evil.

Every good teaching may still end up producing evil bandits who have no principles whatsoever, an outcome even more likely when the teacher is also a bandit.

The idea of authority, which they represented, was associated in our minds with a greater insight and a more humane wisdom.

Giving every child a chance to reach their full potential is the best work anyone can do

We must fight inequality and poverty if we want to re-establish peace and security. Seven million Mexicans live in extreme poverty, which is why I have launched a crusade against hunger. We also have to improve our educational system and stimulate economic growth.

The issue should not be, we're going to tax you more to give you the services you want. The issue is, this is the wealthiest country in the world, and we're going to use that wealth to service human needs and not to service a military industrial corporate surveillance state.

Dangerous thing, giving humanity the knowledge of good and evil. And the capacity to make the wrong choice more often than not.

Whenever education and refinement carry us away from the common people, they are growing towards selfishness, which is the monster evil of the world. That is true cultivation which gives us sympathy with every form of human life, and enables us to work most successfully for its advancement. Refinement that carries us away from our fellow people is not God's refinement.

There aren't many benefactors who don't say, like Satan: All these things will I give you if you bow down and worship me.

I'm Jewish. I've always had a thing where it's okay to dance with the devil, just don't become the devil.

[The church's] job is to provide permanent solace and spiritual leadership to the people as a whole, whatever their government at the moment, so long as it stays within the bounds of moral decency.

The problems of health care can be solved if we stop giving tax cuts to those who have the most, and start making health care affordable for those working harder and harder for too little.

Politics is not about power. Politics is not about money. Politics is not about winning for the sake of winning. Politics is about the improvement of people's lives.

Religion is a by-product of fear. For much of human history it may have been a necessary evil, but why was it more evil than necessary? Isn’t killing people in the name of god a pretty good definition of insanity?

If you want poor people to work you restore their incentive by giving them less, such as by cutting social services. If you want rich people to work you restore their incentive by giving them more, such as by cutting taxes.

The existence of poverty in the US should not be accepted as a necessary evil or insoluble problem, but should be considered a crisis requiring emergency measures. It is a matter of will and priorities, not a matter of resources.

We are living in the richest country in the history of the world, yet we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country and millions of people are struggling to put food on the table. It is my absolute conviction that everyone in this country deserves a minimum standard of living and we've got to go forward in the fight to make that happen.

Truth must the guide of those who hold the power; but humility is their sign, the promise that their privileges are in safe hands.

We have moved into an era where we are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society. We are still called upon to give aid to the beggar who finds himself in misery and agony on life's highway. But one day, we must ask the question of whether an edifice which produces beggars must not be restructured and refurbished.

If you take from the most wealthy and give to the least wealthy, it's good. It tries to balance out.

Education without religion is in danger of substituting wild theories for the simple commonsense rules of Christianity.

We need to put people in positions of authority in government, business, law, medicine, media, sports and entertainment who are filled with the laws of God so that we can bring those laws into effect.