A selection of Paul Ricoeur’s quotes published on the Internet site home page.
“To affirm freedom is to take upon oneself the origin of evil”
The Conflict of Interpretations, Northwestern University Press, 1974, p. 431
“In order to be bound by a promise, the subject of an action must also be able to be released from it through forgiveness”
Memory, History, Forgetting, University of Chicago Press, 2004, p. 459
“It seems, then, that conflict is a function of man’s most primordial constitution; the object is synthesis, the self is conflict”
Paul Ricoeur, Fallible Man, Chicago, Henry Regnery, 1965
"Who am I, so inconstant, that notwithstanding you count on me?"
Oneself as Another
“Political evil can only be an outgrowth of the specific rationality of polity.”
History and Truth, Northwestern Univ. Press, 1965, p. 248
“When the meeting is a confrontation of creative impulses, then it is itself creative.”
History and Truth, Northwestern Univ. Press, 1965, p. 283