Liberty Quotes

“......philosophical concepts nurtured in the stillness of a professor's study could destroy a civilization....but if professors can truly wield this fatal power, may it not be that only other professors, or, at least, other thinkers can alone disarm them?”
― Isaiah Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty

“The world that we encounter in ordinary experience is one in which we are faced by choices equally absolute, the realisation of some of which must inevitably mean the sacrifice of others.”
― Isaiah Berlin, Liberty: Incorporating Four Essays on Liberty

“en mi gran anhelo de status, quizá prefiera ser atropellado y mal gobernado por alguien que pertenezca a mi propia raza o a mi propia clase social, por el que, sin embargo, soy reconocido como hombre y como rival —es decir, como un igual—, a ser tratado bien y de manera tolerante por alguien de algún grupo más elevado y remoto, que no me reconoce lo que yo quiero sentir que soy.”
― Isaiah Berlin, Liberty: Incorporating Four Essays on Liberty

“…without tolerance the conditions for rational criticism, rational condemnation, are destroyed.”
― Isaiah Berlin, Liberty: Incorporating Four Essays on Liberty

“The values in terms of which I conduct my life are the values of my class, or race, or Church, or civilisation, or are part and parcel of my ‘station’ – my position in the ‘social structure.’ Nobody denies that it would be stupid as well as cruel to blame me for not being taller than I am, or to regard the colour of my hair or the qualities of my intellect or heart as being due principally to my own free choice; these attributes are as they are through no decision of mine.”
― Isaiah Berlin, Liberty: Incorporating Four Essays on Liberty