Born in Naples, he was educated in England, Scotland, France and Germany, developing an extraordinary knowledge of European political history. While he never wrote the history of liberty he dreamed about, his essays and letters abound with memorable insights. The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to to govern.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Acton Institute Lord Acton Acton's independent mind Lord Acton transmitted to the English-speaking world the rigor of studying history as much as possible from original sources, pioneered by 19th century German scholars. He marked thousands of passages he considered important. Dons of all subjects crowded to his oracular lectures, which were sometimes puzzling but always impressive. He had the brow of Plato, and the bearing of a sage who was also a man of the great world. His ideas included many of our own, but were drawn from other sources and from wider experience.