The case against the notion of historical objectivity is like the case against international law, or international morality; that it does not exist.

Out of the crooked timber of humanity, nothing completely straight was ever made

One must look at what impiety hates, what puts it in a rage, what it attacks always, everywhere, and with fury - that will be the truth.

Few new truths have ever won their way against the resistance of established ideas save by being overstated.

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.

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 inalienable ingredient in what makes human beings human.

When a man speaks of the need for realism one may be sure that this is always the prelude to some bloody deed.