Great men are almost always bad men.
Lord ActonRead
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end...liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition...The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. ~ Every class is unfit to govern ... Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.
Interpretation
Liberty is an inherent value that serves everyone, and those in power often misuse it.
This quote emphasizes the intrinsic importance of liberty as a fundamental political goal, rather than a tool for achieving other ambitions. It warns against the corrupting influence of power, suggesting that no class is inherently fit to govern as the nature of power itself can lead to moral decay, ultimately implying that true liberty is essential for justice and equality in society.
In practice
Discussing the importance of civil liberties in a political debate.
Great men are almost always bad men.
Save for the wild force of Nature, nothing moves in this world that is not Greek in its origin.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Liberty and good government do not exclude each other; and there are excellent reasons why they should go together. Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.
To develop and perfect and arm conscience is the great achievement of history.
What I have come to realize over the twenty years when I have worked in different roles as a legislator is that no legislation is as good as the enforcement of it.
The Kennedy Administration's public pronouncements on the matter suggested that the presence of Soviet nuclear missiles in Castro's Cuba would represent an unacceptable strategic threat to the United States. . . . This urgent transformation of Cuba into an important strategic base - by the presence of these large, long-range, and clearly offensive weapons of sudden mass-destruction - constitutes an explicit threat to the peace and security of all the Americas. . . .
To announce that there must be no criticism of the president... is morally treasonable to the American public.
If you had to work in the environment of Washington, D.C., as I do, and watch those men who are so imprisoned and so confined by their eighteenth-century thought patterns, you would know that if anybody is going to be liberated, it's men who must be liberated in this country.
The new rage is to say that the government is the cause of all our problems, and if only we had no government, we'd have no problems. I can tell you, that contradicts evidence, history, and common sense.
We are now vibrating between too much and too little government, and the pendulum will rest finally in the middle.
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