[lit-ideas] Re: Acton Institute PowerBlog - Who Really Cares for the Poor?
- From: Ursula Stange <Ursula@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 12:46:26 -0500
A side note....
Thanks for the pointer to the blog, Brian. Prodded me to look up
Acton's dictum. Here's what I found in Wikipedia. Been thinking about
whether Lord Acton would approve his quotation adorning this blog...
US in Canada
---------------------------------
Lord Acton's Dictum
In 1870 came the great crisis in the Roman Catholic world over the
promulgation by Pope Pius IX of the dogma of papal infallibility. Lord
Acton, who was in complete sympathy on this subject with Döllinger, went
to Rome in order to throw all his influence against it, but the step he
so much dreaded was not to be averted. The Old Catholic separation
followed, but Acton did not personally join the seceders, and the
authorities prudently refrained from forcing the hands of so competent
and influential an English layman. It was in this context that in a
letter dated April, 1887, to Bishop Mandell Creighton, Acton made his
most famous pronouncement:
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
This is commonly referred to as Lord Acton's dictum. But it is the third
phrase in this quote that might be the most important, if little-known:
Great men are almost always bad men.
------------------------------------------------
Brian wrote:
Syracuse University professor Arthur Brooks challenges perceived
mainstream social orthodoxy in his new book, /Who Really Cares:
America's Charity Divide - Who Gives, Who Doesnt and Why It Matters/.
http://www.acton.org/blog/index.html?/archives/1402-Who-Really-Cares-for-the-Poor.html
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
