Raymond Aron Quotes

The intellectual who no longer feels attached to anything is not satisfied with opinion merely; he wants certainty, he wants a system. The revolution provides him with his opium.

In a way, all sociologists are akin to Marxists because of their inclination to settle everyone's accounts but their own.

Peace is impossible, war is improbable.

Political thought in France is either nostalgic or Utopian.

What passes for optimism is most often the effect of an intellectual error.

In writing if it takes over 30 minutes to write the first two paragraphs select another subject.

Foreknowledge of the future makes it possible to manipulate both enemies and supporters.

Despotism has so often been established in the name of liberty that experience should warn us to judge parties by their practices rather than their preachings.

Racism is the snobbery of the poor.

Intellectuals cannot tolerate the chance event, the unintelligible: they have a nostalgia for the absolute, for a universally comprehensive scheme.

Skepticism cannot be revolutionary, even though it speaks the language of revolution.