The history of society is the history of the inventive labors that man alter man, alter his desires, habits, outlook, relationships both… — Isaiah Berlin Copy Share Image
The case against the notion of historical objectivity is like the case against international law, or international morality; that it does not… — Isaiah Berlin Copy Share Image
“To preserve our absolute categories or ideals at the expense of human lives offends equally against the principles of science and of… — Isaiah Berlin Copy Share Image
“History, only history, only the sum of the concrete events in time and space – the sum of the actual experience of… — Isaiah Berlin Copy Share Image
“Men would no longer be victims of nature or of their own largely irrational societies: reason would triumph; universal harmonious cooperation, true… — Isaiah Berlin Copy Share Image
“Tolstoy’s interest in history began early in his life. It seems to have arisen not from interest in the past as such,… — Isaiah Berlin Copy Share Image
“Kerensky, yes, Kerensky – I think we have to say one of the great wets of history.” — Isaiah Berlin Copy Share Image
“History alone – the sum of empirically discoverable data – held the key to the mystery of why what happened happened as… — Isaiah Berlin Copy Share Image
“Tolstoy was perfectly right to protest that history is not made to happen by the combination of such obscure entities as the… — Isaiah Berlin Copy Share Image
Those who have ever valued liberty for its own sake believed that to be free to choose, and not to be chosen for, is… — Isaiah Berlin Copy Share Image
Liberty is liberty, not equality or fairness or justice or human happiness or a quiet conscience. — Isaiah Berlin Copy Share Image
“The world that we encounter in ordinary experience is one in which we are faced by choices equally absolute, the realisation of some of… — Isaiah Berlin Copy Share Image
The history of society is the history of the inventive labors that man alter man, alter his desires, habits, outlook, relationships both to other… — Isaiah Berlin Copy Share Image
Out of the crooked timber of humanity, nothing completely straight was ever made — Isaiah Berlin Copy Share Image
Utopias have their value -- nothing so wonderfully expands the imaginative horizons of human potentialities -- but as guides to conduct they can prove… — Isaiah Berlin Copy Share Image
Both liberty and equality are among the primary goals pursued by human beings throughout many centuries; but total liberty for wolves is death to… — Isaiah Berlin Copy Share Image
All forms of tampering with human beings, getting at them, shaping them against their will to your own pattern, all thought control and conditioning… — Isaiah Berlin Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
“True pluralism, as Berlin understands it, is much more tough-minded and intellectually bold: it rejects the view that all conflicts of values can be… — Isaiah Berlin Copy Share Image
Liberty and equality, spontaneity and security, happiness and knowledge, mercy and justice - all these are ultimate human values, sought for themselves alone; yet… — Isaiah Berlin Copy Share Image