John thor dalberg biography

Primary Sources

(1) John Dalberg-Acton,The History of Freedom in Antiquity (1877)

Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime...

At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own; and this association, which is always dangerous, has been sometimes disastrous, by giving to opponents just grounds of opposition, and by kindling dispute over the spoils in the hour of success.

No obstacle has been so constant, or so difficult to overcome, as uncertainty and confusion touching the nature of true liberty. If hostile interests have wrought much injury, false ideas have wrought still more; and its advance is recorded in the increase of knowledge, as much as in the improvement of laws...

It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed