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As soon as sacrifice becomes a duty and necessity to mankind. I see no limit to the horizon which opens before him.
Ernest Renan
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Ernest Renan
Age: 69 †
Born: 1823
Born: February 28
Died: 1892
Died: October 12
Archaeologist
Historian
Literary Critic
Orientalist
Philologist
Philosopher
Professor
Theologian
Writer
Limit
Necessity
Limits
Soon
Sacrifice
Mankind
Duty
Opens
Becomes
Horizon
More quotes by Ernest Renan
The epic disappeared along with the age of personal heroism there can be no epic with artillery.
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Religion is not a popular error it is a great instinctive truth, sensed by the people, expressed by the people.
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The virtue of man is, in a word, the great proof of God.
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History is as much an art as a science.
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Sometimes they reasoned thus: The Messiah ought to do such a thing, now Jesus is the Messiah, therefore Jesus has done such a thing. At other times, by an inverse process, it was said: Such a thing has happened to Jesus now Jesus is the Messiah therefore such a thing was to happen to the Messiah.
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All history is incomprehensible without Christ.
Ernest Renan
No idea can succeed except at the expense of sacrifice no one ever escapes without enduring strain from the struggle of life.
Ernest Renan
Human cruelty took the form of a pact with the deity. A solemn oath was made to kill everything, in which people forbade themselves any display of reason or compassion. A city or a land was devoted to destruction and it was believed an insult to God if one did not observe the abominable oath.
Ernest Renan
To be able to think freely, a man must be certain that no consequence will follow whatever he writes.
Ernest Renan
Every rebel is, with us, more or less a soldier who has missed his vocation, a being made for a heroic life ... The European race is a race of masters and soldiers. If you reduce this noble race to the work in a slave's prison like Negroes or Chinamen, it will rebel.
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As a rule, all heroism is due to a lack of reflection, and thus it is necessary to maintain a mass of imbeciles. If they once understand themselves the ruling men will be lost.
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He whom God has touched will always be a being apart: he is, whatever he may do, a stranger among men he is marked by a sign.
Ernest Renan
The prayer of the agnostic: O God, if there is a God, save my soul if I have a soul.
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Getting its history wrong is part of being a nation.
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Our opinions become fixed at the point where we stop thinking.
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Forgetfulness, and I would even say historical error, are essential in the creation of a nation.
Ernest Renan
It is through Christianity that Judaism has really conquered the world. Christianity is the masterpiece of Judaism.
Ernest Renan
The greatest men of a nation are those it puts to death.
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Good humor is a philosophic state of mind it seems to say to nature that we take her no more seriously than she takes us.
Ernest Renan
A nation has a soul, a spiritual principle. One is in the past, the other in the present. One is the possession of a rich legacy of memories the other is the desire to live together and to value the common heritage.
Ernest Renan