Isaiah Berlin
Isaiah Berlin
Sir Isaiah Berlin OM CBE FBAwas a Russian-British social and political theorist, philosopher and historian of ideas. He was an essayist, conversationalist, raconteur, and lecturer. In its obituary of the scholar, the Independent stated that "Isaiah Berlin was often described, especially in his old age, by means of superlatives: the world's greatest talker, the century's most inspired reader, one of the finest minds of our time... there is no doubt that he showed in more than one direction the unexpectedly...
NationalityRussian
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth6 June 1909
CountryRussian Federation
appetite basic churchill despite enthusiasm european fancy hosts love might moscow possibilities present remains restless roaming siren suit upset
Churchill for all his love of the present hour, his unquenchable appetite for new knowledge, his sense of the technological possibilities of our time, and the restless roaming of his fancy in considering how they might be most imaginatively applied, despite his enthusiasm for Basic English, or the siren suit which so upset his hosts in Moscow - despite all this, Churchill remains a European of the nineteenth century.
assumption beyond century child confines far feeling great home natural personal roosevelt style twentieth typical
For all his sense of history, his large, untroubled, easy-going style of life, his unshakable feeling of personal security, his natural assumption of being at home in the great world far beyond the confines of his own country, Roosevelt was a typical child of the twentieth century and of the New World.
artistic belongs central chasm exists great pursue relate second single unrelated vision
There exists a great chasm between those, on one side, who relate everything to a single central vision... and, on the other side, those who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory... The first kind of intellectual and artistic personality belongs to the hedgehogs, the second to the foxes.
freedom men essence
But to manipulate men, to propel them toward goals which you-the social reformers-see, but they may not, is to deny their human essence, to treat them as objects without wills of their own, and therefore to degrade them.
loss justice choices
Liberty and equality, spontaneity and security, happiness and knowledge, mercy and justice - all these are ultimate human values, sought for themselves alone; yet when they are incompatible, they cannot all be attained, choices must be made, sometimes tragic losses accepted in the pursuit of some preferred ultimate end.
confused believe men
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
humanity timber made
Out of the crooked timber of humanity, nothing completely straight was ever made
true-knowledge
True knowledge is knowledge of why things are as they are, and not merely what they are.
horizon utopia guides
Utopias have their value -- nothing so wonderfully expands the imaginative horizons of human potentialities -- but as guides to conduct they can prove literally fatal.
objectivity law history
The case against the notion of historical objectivity is like the case against international law, or international morality; that it does not exist.
ideas way berlin
Few new truths have ever won their way against the resistance of established ideas save by being overstated.
communication exhausted language
Lenin could listen so intently that he exhausted the speaker.
fundamentals metaphor chains
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.
loss perfect choices
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.