"If, as I believe, the ends of men……" — Isaiah Berlin
"If, as I believe, the ends of men are many, and not all of them are in principle compatible with each other, then the possibility of conflict—and of tragedy—can never wholly be eliminated from human life, either personal or social. The necessity of choosing between absolute claims is then an inescapable characteristic of the human condition. This gives its value to freedom as Acton conceived of it—as an end in itself, and not as a temporary need, arising out of our confused notions and irrational and disordered lives, a predicament which a panacea could one day put right"
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Isaiah Berlin
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28 Quotes by Isaiah Berlin
Isaiah Berlin has 28 quotes on this site.
A few more worth reading:
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Injustice, poverty, slavery, ignorance - these may be cured by reform or revolution. But men do not live only by…
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All forms of tampering with human beings, getting at them, shaping them against their will to your own pattern, all…
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Only barbarians are not curious about where they come from, how they came to be where they are, where they…
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Philosophers are adults who persist in asking childish questions.
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To understand is to perceive patterns.
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Liberty for wolves is death to the lambs.
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Those who have ever valued liberty for its own sake believed that to be free to choose, and not to…
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But to manipulate men, to propel them toward goals which you-the social reformers-see, but they may not, is to deny…
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Lenin could listen so intently that he exhausted the speaker.
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Life may be seen through many windows, none of them necessarily clear or opaque, less or more distorting than any…
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When a man speaks of the need for realism one may be sure that this is always the prelude to…
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Out of the crooked timber of humanity, nothing completely straight was ever made
See all 28 quotes by Isaiah Berlin »
More Absolute Quotes
This quote is filed under Absolute Quotes,
one of 1,809 quotes in that category. Here are a few more:
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I love things that age well - things that don't date, that stand the test of time and that become…
— Giorgio Armani
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Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
— Lord Acton
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A jealous lover of human liberty, deeming it the absolute condition of all that we admire and respect in humanity,…
— Mikhail Bakunin
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But I recognize no infallible authority, even in special questions; consequently, whatever respect I may have for the honesty and…
— Mikhail Bakunin
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Absolute liberty is absence of restraint; responsibility is restraint; therefore, the ideally free individual is responsible to himself.
— Henry Adams
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What may seem depressing or even tragic to one person may seem like an absolute scream to another person, especially…
— Dave Barry
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No sex, age, or condition is above or below the absolute necessity of modesty; but without it one vastly beneath…
— Bruce Barton
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Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point…
— Simone de Beauvoir
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It is old age, rather than death, that is to be contrasted with life. Old age is life's parody, whereas…
— Simone de Beauvoir
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The truth, the absolute truth, is that the chief beauty for the theatre consists in fine bodily proportions.
— Sarah Bernhardt
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The Prime Minister has an absolute genius for putting flamboyant labels on empty luggage.
— Aneurin Bevan
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Once the last trace of emotion has been eradicated, nothing remains of thought but absolute tautology.
— Theodor Adorno
See all 1,809 Absolute Quotes »
