“But to manipulate men, to propel them towards goals which you — the social reformer — see, but they may not, is to deny their human essence, to treat them as objects without wills of their own, and therefore to degrade them.”

Five Essays on Liberty (2002), Two Concepts of Liberty (1958)

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Isaiah Berlin30

Russo-British Jewish social and political theorist, philoso… 1909–1997

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“All forms of tampering with human beings, getting at them, shaping them against their will to your own pattern, all thought control and conditioning is, therefore, a denial of that in men which makes them men and their values ultimate.”

Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997) Russo-British Jewish social and political theorist, philosopher and historian of ideas

Five Essays on Liberty (2002), Two Concepts of Liberty (1958)

“Each of us is leading a difficult life, and when we meet people we are seeing only a tiny part of the thinnest veneer of their complex, troubled existences. To practice anything other than kindness towards them, to treat them in any way save generously, is to quietly deny their humanity.”

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“The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become.”

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“This merely formal conceiving of the facts of one's own wretchedness is at the same time a departure from them--placing them in the object. It is not idle, therefore, to observe reflexively that in that very Thought, one has separated himself from them, and is no longer that which empirically he still sees himself to be.”

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“But you knew them to be evil men—”
“Was I to join them therefore? To let their acts rule my own? I will not make their choices for them, nor will I let them make mine for me!”

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“If you are called upon to govern humans, treat them humanely.”

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“The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.”

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“Women are hardly ever known in their true light, though they may love men, or become indifferent towards them, may give them delight, or abandon them, or may extract from them all the wealth that they possess.”

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“When men are inhuman, take care not to feel towards them as they do towards other humans.”

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“Any situation in which some men prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence;… to alienate humans from their own decision making is to change them into objects.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

“But to manipulate men, to propel them towards goals which you — the social reformer — see, but they may not, is to deny their human essence, to treat them as objects without wills of their own, and therefore to degrade them.”

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Isaiah Berlin30

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