Utopias have their value -- nothing so wonderfully expands the imaginative horizons of human potentialities -- but as guides to conduct they can prove literally fatal.
Isaiah BerlinScience cannot destroy the consciousness of freedom, without which there is no morality and no art, but it can refute it.
Isaiah BerlinThe underlying assumption that human nature is basically the same at all times, everywhere, and obeys eternal laws beyond human control, is a conception that only a handful of bold thinkers have dared to question.
Isaiah BerlinWhen a man speaks of the need for realism one may be sure that this is always the prelude to some bloody deed.
Isaiah BerlinThe most passionate, consistent, extreme and implacable enemy of the Enlightenment and ... all forms of rationalism ... was Johann Georg Hamann. His influence, direct and indirect, upon the romantic revolt against universalism and scientific method ... was considerable and perhaps crucial.
Isaiah Berlin