Freedom for the wolves has often meant death to the sheep. Isaiah Berlin More Quotes by Isaiah Berlin More Quotes From Isaiah Berlin There is no a prior reason for supposing that the truth, when it is discovered, will necessarily prove interesting. Isaiah Berlin reason supposing-that interesting The fundamental sense of freedom is freedom from chains, from imprisonment, from enslavement by others. The rest is extension of this sense, or else metaphor. Isaiah Berlin chains metaphor fundamentals Philosophers are adults who persist in asking childish questions. Isaiah Berlin adults inspiration asking The history of society is the history of the inventive labors that man alter man, alter his desires, habits, outlook, relationships both to other men and to physical nature, with which man is in perpetual physical and technological metabolism. Isaiah Berlin habit desire men All central beliefs on human matters spring from a personal predicament. Isaiah Berlin berlin matter spring The most passionate, consistent, extreme and implacable enemy of the Enlightenment and ... all forms of rationalism ... was Johann Georg Hamann. His influence, direct and indirect, upon the romantic revolt against universalism and scientific method ... was considerable and perhaps crucial. Isaiah Berlin enlightenment romantic enemy Science cannot destroy the consciousness of freedom, without which there is no morality and no art, but it can refute it. Isaiah Berlin morality consciousness art I wish my life and decisions to depend upon myself, not on external forces of whatever kind. I wish to be the instrument of my own, not other men's, acts of will. I wish to be the subject, not an object...I wish to be somebody, not nobody; a doer - deciding, not being decided for, slef-directed and not acted upon by external nature or by other men as if I were a thing, or an animal, or a slave incapable of playing a human role, that is, of conceiving goals and policies of my own and realizing them. Isaiah Berlin goal animal men The notion of the perfect whole, the ultimate solution in which all good things coexist, seems to me not merely unobtainable--that is a truism--but conceptually incoherent. ......Some among the great goods cannot live together. That is a conceptual truth. We are doomed to choose, and every choice may entail an irreparable loss. Isaiah Berlin choices perfect loss Lenin could listen so intently that he exhausted the speaker. Isaiah Berlin exhausted communication language Life may be seen through many windows, none of them necessarily clear or opaque, less or more distorting than any of the others. Isaiah Berlin opaque may life One must look at what impiety hates, what puts it in a rage, what it attacks always, everywhere, and with fury - that will be the truth. Isaiah Berlin rage hate looks When a man speaks of the need for realism one may be sure that this is always the prelude to some bloody deed. Isaiah Berlin cynical men needs No perfect solution is, not merely in practice, but in principle, possible in human affairs, and any determined attempt to produce it is likely to lead to suffering, disillusionment and failure. Isaiah Berlin suffering practice perfect The very desire for guarantees that our values are eternal and secure in some objective heaven is perhaps only a craving for the certainties of childhood or the absolute values of our primitive past. Isaiah Berlin guarantees-that childhood past Conformities are called for much more eagerly today than yesterday... skeptics, liberals, individuals with a taste for private life and their own inner standards of behavior, are objects of fear and derision and targets of persecution for either side... in the great ideological wars of our time. Isaiah Berlin tyrants yesterday war We are doomed to choose and every choice may entail irreparable loss. Isaiah Berlin choices loss may The underlying assumption that human nature is basically the same at all times, everywhere, and obeys eternal laws beyond human control, is a conception that only a handful of bold thinkers have dared to question. Isaiah Berlin assumption human-nature law The desire not to be impinged upon, to be left to oneself, has been the markof high civilisation both on the part of individuals and communities. Isaiah Berlin individual community desire The case against the notion of historical objectivity is like the case against international law, or international morality; that it does not exist. Isaiah Berlin objectivity law history
