Freedom for the wolves has often meant death to the sheep.
Isaiah BerlinRead
Only barbarians are not curious about where they come from, how they came to be where they are, where they appear to be going, whether they wish to go there, and if so, why, and if not, why not.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of self-reflection and curiosity about one's origins and future direction.
Isaiah Berlin suggests that a lack of curiosity about one’s past, present circumstances, and future is a sign of barbarism. He contends that understanding ourselves and our paths is crucial in leading a thoughtful and meaningful life, as it shapes our identity and informs our decisions.
Themes
CuriositySelf-ReflectionIdentityPhilosophySelf-Awareness
In practice
Example use cases
During a seminar on personal development, this quote could be used to prompt discussion about self-awareness.
More from Isaiah Berlin
All quotes →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 BerlinRead
All central beliefs on human matters spring from a personal predicament.
Isaiah BerlinRead
The 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 BerlinRead
The case against the notion of historical objectivity is like the case against international law, or international morality; that it does not exist.
Isaiah BerlinRead
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 BerlinRead
Similar quotes
All discourse of which others cannot partake is not only an irksome usurpation of the time devoted to pleasure and entertainment, but, what never fails to excite resentment, an insolent assertion of superiority, and a triumph over less enlightened understandings. The pedant is, therefore, not only heard with weariness but malignity; and those who conceive themselves insulted by his knowledge never fail to tell with acrimony how injudiciously it was exerted.
Samuel JohnsonRead
Appearances are a glimpse of the unseen.
AnaxagorasRead
But once in a while the odd thing happens _x000D_ Once in a while the dream comes true _x000D_ And the whole pattern of life is altered _x000D_ Once in a while, the moon turns blue
W. H. AudenRead
Coastal sailing as long as it is perfectly safe and easy commands no magic. Overseas expeditions are invariably bound up with ceremonies and ritual. Man resorts to magic only where chance and circumstances are not fully controlled by knowledge.
Bronislaw MalinowskiRead
The trace I leave to me means at once my death, to come or already come, and the hope that it will survive me. It is not an ambition of immortality; it is fundamental. I leave here a bit of paper, I leave, I die; it is impossible to exit this structure; it is the unchanging form of my life. Every time I let something go, I live my death in writing.
Jacques DerridaRead
The body can't distinguish between cleansing and punishing for the body is ignorant, and mute besides.
Joyce Carol OatesRead