Home > Work > Essays On Freedom And Power
1 " Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. "
― John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton , Essays On Freedom And Power
2 " Absolute power corrupts absolutely "
3 " It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in the masses which, if it is called into play, the minority can seldom resist. "
4 " If the distribution of power among the several parts of the State is the most efficient restraint on monarchy, the distribution of power among several States is the best check on democracy.. "
5 " If you will bear in mind that Socrates, the best of the pagans, knew of no higher criterion for men, of no better guide of conduct, than the laws of each country; that Plato, whose sublime doctrine was so near an anticipation of Christianity that celebrated theologians wished his works to be forbidden, lest men should be content with them, and indifferent to any higher dogma —to whom was granted that prophetic vision of the Just Man, accused, condemned and scourged, and dying on a Cross — nevertheless employed the most splendid intellect ever bestowed on man to advocate the abolition of the family and the exposure of infants; that Aristotle, the ablest moralist of antiquity, saw no harm in making raids upon a neighbouring people, for the sake of reducing them to slavery — still more, if you will consider that, among the moderns, men of genius equal to these have held political doctrines not less criminal or absurd —it will be apparent to you how stubborn a phalanx of error blocks the paths of truth "
