“The immediate purpose with which the Italians and Germans effected the great change in European constitution was unity, not liberty. They constructed, not securities, but forces. Machiavelli's hour had come.”

—  John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

Introductory note to G.P. Gooch's Annals of Politics and Culture https://archive.org/stream/annalsofpolitics00goociala#page/n5/mode/2up, p. xxxlv (1901)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The immediate purpose with which the Italians and Germans effected the great change in European constitution was unity,…" by John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton?
John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton photo
John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton 112
British politician and historian 1834–1902

Related quotes

Alfredo Rocco photo

“This idea of the state as a force (which as a result of the current general state of ignorance is seen as a German Prussian idea) is plainly a Latin and Italian one. It is directly linked with the intellectual tradition of Rome and was refurbished by Machiavelli’s political philosophy.”

Alfredo Rocco (1875–1935) Italian politician and jurist

As quoted in Modern Political Ideologies, Third Edition, Andrew Vincent, West Sussex, UK, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, p. 156

Edmund Burke photo

“...what the freedom is that I love, and that to which I think all men intitled. It is not solitary, unconnected, individual, selfish Liberty. As if every Man was to regulate the whole of his Conduct by his own will. The Liberty I mean is social freedom. It is that state of things in which Liberty is secured by the equality of Restraint; A Constitution of things in which the liberty of no one Man, and no body of Men and no Number of men, can find Means to trespass on the liberty of any Person, or any description of Persons in the Society. This kind of liberty is indeed but another name for Justice, as ascertained by wise Laws, and secured by well-constructed institutions.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Letter to Charles-Jean-François Depont (November 1789), quoted in Alfred Cobban and Robert A. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VI: July 1789–December 1791 (1967), p. 42
1780s

William H. Seward photo

“The constitution regulates our stewardship; the constitution devotes the domain to union, to justice, to defense, to welfare and to liberty.
But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes.”

William H. Seward (1801–1872) American lawyer and politician

Speech, United States Senate (11 March 1850).
Context: It is true, indeed, that the national domain is ours. It is true that it was acquired by the valor and with the wealth of the whole nation. But we hold no arbitrary authority over it. We hold no arbitrary authority over anything, whether lawfully acquired or seized by usurpation. The constitution regulates our stewardship; the constitution devotes the domain to union, to justice, to defense, to welfare and to liberty.
But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes.

D.H. Lawrence photo

“The Rhine is still the Rhine, the great divider... Immediately you are over the Rhine, the spirit of place has changed... It is as if the life had retreated eastwards. As if the Germanic life were slowly ebbing away from contact with western Europe, ebbing to the deserts of the east.”

D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter

Source: 'A Letter from Germany', written 19 February 1924, printed in The New Statesman (13 October 1934), quoted in D. H. Lawrence, Selected Essays (1950), pp. 175-176

P. W. Botha photo

“The security and happiness of all minority groups in South Africa depend on the Afrikaner. Whether they are English- or German- or Portuguese- or Italian-speaking, or even Jewish-speaking, makes no difference.”

P. W. Botha (1916–2006) South African prime minister

Speaking to the House of Assembly on February 20, 1981, as cited by Andrew Donaldson, Sunday Times, 5 November 2006

“It was in the Second World War, then, that the full force of the modern European state was mobilized for the first time, for the primary purpose of conquering and exploiting other Europeans.”

Tony Judt (1948–2010) British historian

Chap. 1 : The Legacy of War
Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (2005)

Viktor Orbán photo

“we can never show solidarity with ideologies, peoples and ethnic groups which are committed to the goal of changing the very European culture which forms the essence, meaning and purpose of the European way of life. We must not show solidarity with groups and ideologies which oppose to the aims of European existence and culture, because that would lead to surrender.”

Viktor Orbán (1963) Hungarian politician, chairman of Fidesz
Rodolfo Graziani photo

“Herewith I, Marshal of Italy Rodolfo Graziani, in my capacity as Italian Minister of War, extend to General of the Waffen-SS Karl Wolff, the higher SS and police leader and fully empowered general of the German Armed Forces in Italy, the following powers: to conduct negotiations on my behalf and, with the same conditions as for the German Armed Forces in Italy, to enter into agreements binding me with respect to all regular troops of the Italian Army, Navy and Air Force as well as of the military Fascist units.”

Rodolfo Graziani (1882–1955) Italian general

Letter to General Karl Wolff. Quoted in "The Secret Surrender" - Page 165 - by Allen Dulles - History - 2006

Ossip Zadkine photo

“My huge monument to the bombing of Rotterdam [in 1940, by the German aircraft], for instance, was the third and final version of this figure. Once the model had been accepted in principle and the scale agreed on, I began working on a new version of it, conceiving it to a great extent in terms of the effects of the changes of lighting in which such a monument would been seen in the open air.”

Ossip Zadkine (1890–1967) French sculptor

c. 1960
the name of the monument is ( 'Destroyed City', 1953 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Zadkine_%27s_verwoeste_stad..jpg), in Dutch language: in Dutch: 'De verwoeste Stad']
Source: 1960 - 1968, Dialogues – conversations with.., quotes, c. 1960, p. 155

Charles William Eliot photo

“A university teaches. What does it teach? It must obviously teach all the languages in which the great literatures which have been preserved were written — Hebrew, Arabic, Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, German, Scandinavian, and English.”

Charles William Eliot (1834–1926) President of Harvard

[Z. Elmarsafy, A. Bernard, D. Attwell, Debating Orientalism, https://books.google.com/books?id=VP6ARP2m-D0C&pg=PA82, 13 June 2013, Springer, 978-1-137-34111-2, 82]

Related topics