Ernest Renan
Ernest Renan
Joseph Ernest Renanwas a French expert of Middle East ancient languages and civilizations, philosopher, historian, and writer, devoted to his native province of Brittany. He is best known for his influential historical works on early Christianity, and his political theories, especially concerning nationalism and national identity. Renan is credited as being among the first scholars to advance the Khazar theory, which held that Ashkenazi Jews were descendants of Turkic peoples who had adopted Jewish religion and migrated to Western Europe...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth28 February 1823
CountryFrance
No idea can succeed except at the expense of sacrifice; no one ever escapes without enduring strain from the struggle of life.
To have common glories in the past, a common will in the present; to have done great things together; to wish to do greater; these are the essential conditions which make up a people
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.
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.
It is through Christianity that Judaism has really conquered the world. Christianity is the masterpiece of Judaism...
Forgetfulness, and I would even say historical error, are essential in the creation of a nation.
Man makes holy what he believes as he makes beautiful what he loves.
Muslims are the first victims of Islam. To liberate a Muslim from his religion is the best service that one can render him!
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.
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.
Muslims are the first victims of Islam. Many times I have observed in my travels in the Orient that fanaticism comes from a small number of dangerous men who maintain the others in the practice of religion by terror. To liberate the Muslim from his religion is the best service one can render him.
Our opinions become fixed at the point where we stop thinking.