“In the height of their power the Romans became aware of a race of men that had not abdicated freedom in the hands of a monarch; and the ablest writer of the empire pointed to them with a vague and bitter feeling that, to the institutions of these barbarians, not yet crushed by despotism, the future of the world belonged.”
The History of Freedom in Christianity (1877)
Context: In the height of their power the Romans became aware of a race of men that had not abdicated freedom in the hands of a monarch; and the ablest writer of the empire pointed to them with a vague and bitter feeling that, to the institutions of these barbarians, not yet crushed by despotism, the future of the world belonged. Their kings, when they had kings, did not preside [at] their councils; they were sometimes elective; they were sometimes deposed; and they were bound by oath to act in obedience to the general wish. They enjoyed real authority only in war. This primitive Republicanism, which admits monarchy as an occasional incident, but holds fast to the collective supremacy of all free men, of the constituent authority over all constituted authorities, is the remote germ of parliamentary government.
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John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton 112
British politician and historian 1834–1902Related quotes
Christian Anarchy: Jesus’ Primacy Over the Powers (1987)
Source: Capitalism and Freedom (1962), Ch. 1 The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, p. 15
“Behold them, conquerors of the world, the toga-clad race of Romans!”
En Romanos, rerum dominos, gentemque togatam!
Said disparagingly of a group of men in cloaks, quoting Virgil's The Aeneid. Augustus allowed only those wearing a toga and no cloak to enter the Forum; in Suetonius, Divus Augustus, paragraph 40. Translation: Robert Graves, 1957.
As quoted in Simpson's Contemporary Quotations (1988) by James Beasley Simpson, p. 211
Source: That Greece Might Still be Free (1972), p. 15-16.
Context: Whether the present inhabitants of Greece are descended from the Ancient Greeks is a profoundly unsatisfactory question. No method of subdividing the question makes much sense. On the one hand, one can attempt to trace the numerous incursions of immigrants to Greece and try to assess the extent to which the ‘blood’ of the Ancients has been diluted by outside races, Romans, barbarians, Franks, Turks, Venetians, Albanians, etc. On the other hand, one can point to the remarkable survival of ideas and customs and, in particular, to the astonishing strength of the linguistic tradition.
“Commerce unites men and make them; therefore it is fatal to despotic power.”
Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon's War Maxims: With His Social and Political Thoughts (1804-15), Gale & Polden, (1899) p. 150
On himself
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2008/05/19/sotyson119.xml
Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Ch.4 Why Has Christianity Never Undertaken the Work of Social Reconstruction?, p. 143-144