Quotes Library

October 31, 2025

The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern.

Lord Acton (1834–1902), English historian, Letter to Mary Gladstone, in The Cynic’s Lexicon, Jonathon Green, ed. (London: 1986), p.1

From what class do you derive? What is the particular unfitness of your class? How can you make up for that lack?

Of course, every class alone is unfit to govern, but that’s why we need all classes in government.


More Quotes

August 15, 2025
Every law is contrary to liberty.
October 21, 2025
The revolutionary spirit is mightily convenient in this: that it frees one from all scruples as regards ideas.
February 12, 2025
Why shouldn’t things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? They are so, and we are so, and they and we go well together.
Page 109 of 122