The virtue of man is, in a word, the great proof of God. Ernest Renan More Quotes by Ernest Renan More Quotes From Ernest Renan Getting its history wrong is part of being a nation. Ernest Renan nations history Work is the best thing to make us love life. Ernest Renan best-things love-life work 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 mind joy happiness Morality has been conceived up to the present in a very narrow spirit, as obedience to a law, as inner struggle between opposite laws. As for me, I declare that when I do good I obey no one, I fight no battle and win no victory. The cultivated person has only to follow the delicious incline of his or her inner impulses. Be beautiful and then do at each moment whatever your heart may inspire you to do. This is the whole of morality. Ernest Renan struggle heart beautiful I can die when I wish to: that is my elixir of life. Ernest Renan dying wish death Never has any one been less a priest than Jesus, never a greater enemy of forms, which stifle religion under the pretext of protecting it. By this we are all his disciples and his successors; by this he has laid the eternal foundation-stone of true religion; and if religion is essential to humanity, he has by this deserved the Divine rank the world has accorded him. Ernest Renan humanity enemy jesus 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 . Ernest Renan dream ideas jesus All history is incomprehensible without Christ. Ernest Renan christ 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. Ernest Renan atheism reflection men The ignorance of French society gives one a rough sense of the infinite. Ernest Renan ignorance home travel The epic disappeared along with the age of personal heroism; there can be no epic with artillery. Ernest Renan heroism epic age 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 god may men 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. Ernest Renan rebel race soldier 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." Ernest Renan atheism done jesus Religion is not a popular error; it is a great instinctive truth, sensed by the people, expressed by the people. Ernest Renan errors people religion His glory Jesus Christ does not consist in beingplaced without the confines of history; a more real worship is paid to him, by showing that the whole of history is incomprehensible without him. Ernest Renan real education jesus 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 land compassion cities Jesus was the greatest religious genius that ever lived. Ernest Renan genius religious jesus The liberty of the individual is a necessary postulate of human progress. Ernest Renan progress individuality liberty Blessed are the blind, for they know not enough to ask why. Ernest Renan blind enough blessed
