What passes for optimism is most often the effect of an intellectual error. — Raymond Aron Copy Share Image
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. — Raymond Aron Copy Share Image
“Europeans would like to escape from their history, a "great" history written in letters of blood. But others, by the hundreds of millions, are… — Raymond Aron Copy Share Image
Skepticism cannot be revolutionary, even though it speaks the language of revolution. — Raymond Aron Copy Share Image
“In essence, France no longer existed. It existed only in the hatred of the French for one another.” — Raymond Aron Copy Share Image
What passes for optimism is most often the effect of an intellectual error. — Raymond Aron Copy Share Image
Despotism has so often been established in the name of liberty that experience should warn us to judge parties by their practices rather than… — Raymond Aron Copy Share Image
The intellectual who no longer feels attached to anything is not satisfied with opinion merely; he wants certainty, he wants a system. The revolution… — Raymond Aron Copy Share Image
Intellectuals cannot tolerate the chance event, the unintelligible: they have a nostalgia for the absolute, for a universally comprehensive scheme. — Raymond Aron Copy Share Image
“The man who no longer expects miraculous changes either from a revolution or from an economic plan is not obliged to resign himself to… — Raymond Aron Copy Share Image
Foreknowledge of the future makes it possible to manipulate both enemies and supporters. — Raymond Aron Copy Share Image
