Isaiah Berlin

"The greatest achievement of the human mind is the understanding that the world is very strange and beautiful."

"Liberty is liberty, not equality or fairness or justice or culture, or human happiness or a quiet conscience."

"If the ends do not justify the means, what does?"

"One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often."

"The idea of perfection is the enemy of perfection."

"Human variety is not an obstacle to be overcome but a fundamental feature of human life."

"The pursuit of the ideal is the enemy of the good."

"Pluralism is the only defensible approach to human values."

"You cannot combine the pursuit of unlimited power with the pursuit of truth."

"The more unjust a society is, the more unjust its law becomes."

"To realize the relative validity of one's convictions and yet stand for them unflinchingly is what makes a worthy human being."

"Injustice, poverty, slavery and the congenital human miseries do not come from God but from the failure to distribute resources justly."

"The trouble with the modern age is its loss of historical sense."

"Freedom is precious and demanded by human dignity."

"We want not to be crushed by arbitrary power."

"Romanticism is a sickness that comes from idealistic dreams confronting reality."

"The fundamental issue is always the same: the claims of the individual versus the demands of society."

"No perfect answer can ever be given to questions about how men should live."

"The essence of liberty is the ability to question and challenge prevailing orthodoxies."

"Certainty is the enemy of wisdom."

"Man cannot live without seeking some form of truth."

"A man may be said to have a right to life only insofar as he does not infringe on the rights of others."

"The purpose of history is not to explain the past but to illuminate the present."

"Compromise is everywhere; it is the only way to get things done."

"A man cannot be fulfilled unless he is able to exercise choice."

"The conflict between liberty and equality cannot be perfectly resolved."

"Growth is the only evidence of life."

"The desire for power corrupts the desire for truth."

"We are not machines, and machines cannot understand us."

"The trouble with the Enlightenment was that it believed in certainty."