Isaiah Berlin, (1909-1997) Russian-British social and political theorist, philosopher, historian Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [1-6] of 6 Isaiah Berlin quotesIsaiah Berlin QuotesIsaiah Berlin Those who have ever valued liberty for its own sake believed that to be free to choose, and not to be chosen for, is an unalienable ingredient in what makes human beings human.~ Isaiah Berlin The first people totalitarians destroy or silence are men of ideas and free minds.~ Isaiah Berlin All forms of tampering with human beings, getting at them, shaping them against their will to your own pattern, all thought control and conditioning is, therefore, a denial of that in men which makes them men and their values ultimate.~ Isaiah Berlin 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.~ Isaiah Berlin Injustice, poverty, slavery, ignorance -- these may be cured by reform or revolution. But men do not live only by fighting evils. They live by positive goals, individual and collective, a vast variety of them, seldom predictable, at times incompatible.~ Isaiah Berlin Conformities are called for much more eagerly today than yesterday... skeptics, liberals, individuals with a taste for private life and their own inner standards of behavior, are objects of fear and derision and targets of persecution for either side... in the great ideological wars of our time.~ Isaiah Berlin Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print