Raymond Aron

“Europeans would like to escape from their history, a "great" history written in letters of blood. But others, by the hundreds of…

— Raymond Aron

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

— Raymond Aron

“In essence, France no longer existed. It existed only in the hatred of the French for one another.”

— Raymond Aron

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

— Raymond Aron

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

— Raymond Aron

The intellectual who no longer feels attached to anything is not satisfied with opinion merely; he wants certainty, he wants a system.…

— Raymond Aron

Peace is impossible, war is improbable.

— Raymond Aron

Racism is the snobbery of the poor.

— Raymond Aron

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

— Raymond Aron

“The man who no longer expects miraculous changes either from a revolution or from an economic plan is not obliged to resign…

— Raymond Aron

Political thought in France is either nostalgic or Utopian.

— Raymond Aron

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

— Raymond Aron

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

— Raymond Aron

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

— Raymond Aron