Isaiah Berlin

freedom wolf death sheep

“Freedom for the wolves has often meant death to the sheep.”

― Isaiah Berlin (1909-1974)

doomed choose inreparable loss

“We are doomed to choose and every choice may entail irreparable loss.”

― Isaiah Berlin (1909-1974)

liberty equality wolves lambs powerful weak

“Both liberty and equality are among the primary goals pursued by human beings throughout many centuries; but total liberty for wolves is death to the lambs, total liberty of the powerful, the gifted, is not compatible with the rights to a decent existence of the weak and the less gifted.”

― Isaiah Berlin (1909-1974)

undrstand perceive patterns

“To understand is to perceive patterns.”

― Isaiah Berlin (1909-1974)

fox hedgehog

“The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”

― Isaiah Berlin (1909-1974)

crooked timber humanity straight

“Out of the crooked timber of humanity, nothing completely straight was ever made”

― Isaiah Berlin (1909-1974)

false education illusion error unspeakable crimes

“I can see how, with enough false education, enough widespread illusion and error, men can, while remaining men, believe this and commit the most unspeakable crimes.”

― Isaiah Berlin (1909-1974)

academic commentator idea interesting true truth

"The trouble with academics and commentators is that they care more about whether ideas are interesting than whether they are true."

― Isaiah Berlin (1909-1974)

true knowledge why what

"True knowledge is knowledge of why things are as they are, and not merely what they are."

― Isaiah Berlin (1909-1974)

totalitarian destroy ideas free mind

"The first people totalitarians destroy or silence are men of ideas and free minds."

― Isaiah Berlin (1909-1974)

perfect solution possible human affair suffering failure

"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 (1909-1974)

philosopher adult childish question

"Philosophers are adults who persist in asking childish questions."

― Isaiah Berlin (1909-1974)

intellectual honest courage truth thinkers eighteenth century

"The intellectual power, honesty, lucidity, courage, and disinterested love of the truth of the most gifted thinkers of the eighteenth century remain to this day without parallel. Their age is one of the best and most hopeful episodes in the life of mankind."

― Isaiah Berlin (1909-1974)

truth interesting

"There is no a prior reason for supposing that the truth, when it is discovered, will necessarily prove interesting."

― Isaiah Berlin (1909-1974)

life windows clear opaque distorting

"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 (1909-1974)