Isaiah Berlin Quotes

Morality is temporary, wisdom is permanent.

Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.

Morality only is eternal. All the rest is balloon and bubble from the cradle to the grave.

I'm a good, upstanding guy with moral values and core values.

You never want to see people disrespect anything that stands for honor.

I don't believe that there are two sides to a story when it's a matter of right versus wrong. It just doesn't work that way.

What are the values that give meaning? What is the line that you will never cross, because on this side you're good, and on this side you're evil.

One needs to know what is right and what is wrong.

My parents are naive in their morality of things, and so, without realising it, I landed up being ethical and having strong opinions.

My cares and my inquiries are for decency and truth, and in this I am wholly occupied.

Morality is always derivative. It stems from one's worldview.

Without Virtue there can be no liberty

Life without prejudice, were it ever to be tried, would soon reveal itself to be a life without principle.

You don't have to compromise convictions to be compassionate.

"On my honor" - what an ennobling phrase! Three short words, nine letters, but the summation of all we call character. From the Boy Scout's Oath.

VIRTUES, n.pl. Certain abstentions.

Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.

May I ask you something?" I say. "Why do you read books, when you could be outside, living a million different adventures every day?" "Because you can always count on a book to stay the same. EVerything else changes when you least expect it," she replies, bitter. "Families split apart, and nothing's forever. In books, you always know what's coming next. There are no surprises.

The lessons this life has planted in my heart pertain more to caring than crops, more to Golden Rule than gold, more to the proper choice than to the popular choice.

As far as the stars are from the earth, and as different as fire is from water, so much do self-interest and integrity differ.

It can never be necessary to do what is not honourable.

If nothing is self-evident, nothing can be proved. Similarly if nothing is obligatory for its own sake, nothing is obligatory at all.

Integrity is the core of our character.

But rules cannot substitute for character.

-tomorrow is our permanent address and there they’ll scarcely find us(if they do, we’ll move away still further:into now