Out Of The Crooked Timber Of

This line comes from Kant's essay "Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose" (1784), published in the Berlinische Monatsschrift. Kant used it to explain why human history, despite progress, never produces truly just or perfect institutions: human nature contains irreducible self-interest and irrationality. The phrase was later popularized by the philosopher Isaiah Berlin, who used it as the epigraph for one of his most celebrated essays on political philosophy.