Ernest Renan Quotes
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The only way of salvation for the world is by returning to thy allegiance.... Firm in my faith, I shall have force to withstand my evil counsellors, my skepticism, which leads me to doubt of the people, my restless spirit which, after truth has been brought to light, impels to go on searching for it.
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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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Muslims are the first victims of Islam. To liberate a Muslim from his religion is the best service that one can render him!
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In morals, truth is but little prized when it is a mere sentiment, and only attains its full value when realized in the world as fact.
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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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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.
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True Christianity, which will last forever, comes from the gospel words of Christ not from the epistles of Paul. The writings of Paul have been a danger and a hidden rock, the causes of the principal defects of Christian theology.
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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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Forgetfulness, and I would even say historical error, are essential in the creation of a nation.
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To act well in this world, one must sacrifice all personal desires. The people who become missionaries of religious thought have no other Fatherland than this thought. Man is not on Earth merely to be happy, nor even simply to be honest. He is here to realize great things for humanity, to attain nobility, and to surmount the vulgarity of nearly every individual.
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The ignorance of French society gives one a rough sense of the infinite.
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The simplest schoolboy is now familiar with truths for which Archimedes would have sacrificed his life.
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To be able to think freely, a man must be certain that no consequence will follow whatever he writes.
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All history is incomprehensible without Christ.
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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.
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I can die when I wish to: that is my elixir of life.
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Let us remember that sorrow alone is the creator of great things.
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Jesus , in some respects, was an anarchist, for he had no idea of civil government . That government seems to him purely and simply an abuse. A great social revolution, in which rank will be overturned, in which all authority in this world will be humiliated, was his dream .
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Man makes holy what he believes as he makes beautiful what he loves.
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The epic disappeared along with the age of personal heroism; there can be no epic with artillery.
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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.
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It is evident, indeed, that such a doctrine, taken by itself in a literal manner, had no future. The world, in continuing to exist, caused it to crumble. One generation of man at the most was the limit of its endurance. The faith of the first Christian generation is intelligible, but the faith of the second generation is no longer so. After the death of John, or of the last survivor, whoever he might be, of the group which had seen the master, the word of Jesus was convicted of falsehood.
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The talent of historians lies in their creating a true ensemble out of facts which are but half true.