Quotes from Raymond Aron

Communist interpretation is never wrong. Logicians will object in vain that a theory which exempts itself from all refutations escapes from the order of truth.

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

The intellectual ... must try never to forget the arguments of the adversary, or the uncertainty of the future, or the faults of one's own side, or the underlying fraternity of ordinary men everywhere.

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

Freedom flourishes in temperate zones; it does not survive the burning faith of prophets and crowds.

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

Are revolutions worthy of so much honour? The men who conceive them are not those who carry them out. Those who begin them rarely live to see their end, except in exile or in prison. Can they really be the symbol of a humanity which is the master of its own destiny if no man recognises his handiwork in the achievement which results from the savage free-for-all struggle?

Europeans would like to escape from their history, a great history written in letters of blood. But others, by the hundreds of millions, are taking it up for the first time, or coming back to it.

Anyone who does not see that there is a 'struggle for power' element is naïve; anyone who sees nothing but this aspect is a false realist.

Tal vez exista, a pesar de todo, una solución autentica, la única solución. Incluso en los periodos de catástrofes, incluso en los períodos de las religiones políticas, hay una actividad del hombre tal vez más importante que la política: la búsqueda de la Verdad

The rationalist is not unaware of the animal impulses in man, and of the passions of man in society. The rationalist has long since abandoned the illusion that men, alone or in groups, are reasonable. He bets on the education of humanity, even if he is not sure he will win his wager.

L'ennemi d'hier est l'ami d'aujourd'hui. Il n'y a pas de politique raisonnable sans capacité d'oubli.

El historiador es un experto, no un físico. No busca las causas de la explosión en la fuerza expansiva de los gases, sino en la cerilla del fumador

Si el universo en que han vivido los hombres de los tiempos pasados no tuviera nada en común con éste en que vivo; si esos dos universos no aparecieran, para un cierto grado de abstracción, como variaciones de un mismo tema, el universo del otro me resultaría radicalmente extraño y perdería todo significado. Para que la historia entera me resulte inteligible, los vivos deben descubrirse un cierto parentesco con los muertos.

There is no apprenticeship to misfortune. When it strikes us, we still have everything to learn.

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

Peace is impossible, war is improbable.

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

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.