A Quote by Isaiah Berlin

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.

Isaiah Berlin

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Absolute Arising Believe Between Characteristic Choosing Claims Compatible Conceived Condition Conflict Confused Could Day Each Either Eliminated End Ends Freedom Gives Human Human Condition Human Life I Believe Inescapable Irrational Itself Life Lives Many Men Necessity Need Never Notions One Day Other Our Out Panacea Personal Possibility Predicament Principle Put Right Social Temporary Them Then Tragedy Value Which Wholly

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Isaiah Berlin
Russian - Philosopher
June 6, 1909 - November 5, 1997

Stories are there to be told, and each story changes with the telling. Time changes them. Logic changes them. Grammar changes them. History changes them. Each story is shifted side-ways by each day that unfolds. Nothing ends. The only thing that matters, as Faulkner once put it, is the human heart in conflict with itself. At the heart of all this is the possibility, or desire, to create a piece of art that talks to the human instinct for recovery and joy.

Colum McCann

For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one’s predicament into a human achievement.

Viktor E. Frankl

One realizes that human relationships are the tragic necessity of human life; that they can never be wholly satisfactory, that every ego is half the time greedily seeking them, and half the time pulling away from them. In those simple relationships of loving husband and wife, affectionate sisters, children and grandmother, there are innumerable shades of sweetness and anguish which make up the pattern of our lives day by day, though they are not down in the list of subjects from which the conventional novelist works.

Willa Cather

At the end of the day, we need to realize that segregation is not the human condition at its best. Which isn't to say we need to all be the same. It simply means we need to embrace each other's differences to help tell our stories together.

Michael Arden

We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed. For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one's predicament into a human achievement. When we are no longer able to change a situation-just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer-we are challenged to change ourselves.

Viktor E. Frankl

The human condition comprehends more than the condition under which life has been given to man. Men are conditioned beings because everything they come in contact with turns immediately into a condition of their existence. The world in which the vita activa spends itself consists of things produced by human activities; but the things that owe their existence exclusively to men nevertheless constantly condition their human makers.

Hannah Arendt

If love exists between two persons, it is blessed. If love does not exist between two persons, then all your laws put together cannot bridge them. Then they exist separate, then they exist apart, then they exist in conflict, then they exist always in war. And they create all kinds of trouble for each other. They are nasty to each other, nagging to each other, possessive of each other, violent, oppressive, dominating, dictatorial.

Rajneesh

The inviolability of the person which is a reflection of the absolute inviolability of God, finds its primary and fundamental expression in the inviolability of human life. Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights-for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture- is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination.

Pope John Paul II

The history of humanity is the history of human freedom...Freedom is not, as Engels thought, "the recognition of necessity." Freedom is the opposite of necessity. Freedom is necessity overcome. Progress is, in essence, the progress of human freedom. Yes, and after all, life itself is freedom. The evolution of life is the evolution of freedom.

Vasily Grossman

Did it ever occur to you, that there is no conflict of interests among men, neither in business nor in trade nor in their most personal desires if they omit the irrational from their view of the possible and destruction from their view of the practical? There is no conflict, and no call for sacrifice, and no man is a threat to the aims of another if men understand that reality is an absolute not to be faked, that lies do not work, that the unearned cannot be had, that the undeserved cannot be given, that the destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn't.

Ayn Rand

Liberty is not about class war, income war, race war, national war, a war between the sexes, or any other conflict apart from the core conflict between individuals and those who would seek power and control over the human spirit. Liberty is the dream that we can all work together, in ways of our choosing and of our own human volition, to realize a better life.

Jeffrey Tucker

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality. That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.

J. K. Rowling

in addition to the conditions under which life is given to man on earth, and partly out of them, men constantly create their own, self-made conditions, which, their human origins notwithstanding, possess the same conditioning power as natural things. whatever touches or enters into a sustained relationship with human life immediately assumes the character of a condition of human existence. this is why men, no matter what they do, are always conditioned beings. whatever enters the human world of its own accord or is drawn into it by human effort becomes part of the human condition.

Hannah Arendt

Anarchism is no patent solution for all human problems, no Utopia of a perfect social order, as it has often been called, since on principle it rejects all absolute schemes and concepts. It does not believe in any absolute truth, or in definite final goals for human development, but in an unlimited perfectibility of social arrangements and human conditions which are always straining after higher forms of expression, and to which for this reason one can assign no definite terminus nor set any fixed goal.

Rudolf Rocker

Every period of human development has had its own particular type of human conflict---its own variety of problem that, apparently, could be settled only by force. And each time, frustratingly enough, force never really settled the problem. Instead, it persisted through a series of conflicts, then vanished of itself---what's the expression---ah, yes, 'not with a bang, but a whimper,' as the economic and social environment changed. And then, new problems, and a new series of wars.

Isaac Asimov

Many good Christians are confused about complex social issues of our day, such as doctor-assisted death or medical research which uses stem cells from human embryos. They wonder, 'Why shouldn't science use discarded fetuses for research?' And if someone finds his medical condition intolerable and hopeless, 'why shouldn't he have the legal right to end his life?' Although the Bible does not address these issues in particular, it does provide guiding insights.

Joni Eareckson Tada

A Quote by Isaiah Berlin

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