The Widespread Sense of Horror: Isaiah Berlin

We choose as we choose, that is all that can be said; and if this leads to conflict and destruction, that is a fact about the world which must be accepted as gravitation is accepted, something which is inherent in the dissimilar natures of dissimilar men, or nations, or cultures. That this is not a valid diagnosis has been made clear if only by the widespread sense of horror which the excesses of totalitarianism have caused.

Isaiah Berlin: The Crooked Timber Of Humanity. Random House, New York: 1992. Pp. 203