“The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern. The law of liberty tends to abolish the reign of race over race, of faith over faith, of class over class.”

1880s, Letter to Mary Gladstone (1881)

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John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton photo
John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton 112
British politician and historian 1834–1902

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

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

Letter to Mary Gladstone (1881)
Context: The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern. The law of liberty tends to abolish the reign of race over race, of faith over faith, of class over class.

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“There are no such things as classes: they cannot be. Class means caste and caste means race.”

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“In class society, everyone lives as a member of a particular class, and every kind of thinking, without exception, is stamped with the brand of a class.”

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