Friday 13 September 2024

Liberals

John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, Baron Acton (1834-1902), Lectures on the French Revolution (London: Macmillan, 1910), p. 19:
Yet all these fractions of opinion were called Liberal: Montesquieu, because he was an intelligent Tory; Voltaire, because he attacked the clergy, Turgot, as a reformer; Rousseau, as a democrat; Diderot, as a freethinker. The one thing common to them all is a disregard for liberty.