Quotes by Renan, Ernest




Ernest Renan (February 28, 1823 October 12, 1892) was a French philosopher and writer..

"I can die when I wish to: that is my elixir of life."

Renan, Ernest on death
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"To conceive the good, in fact, is not sufficient; it must be made to succeed among men. To accomplish this less pure paths must be followed."

Renan, Ernest on goodness    Share

"The greatest men of a nation are those it puts to death."

Renan, Ernest on greatness    Share

"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."

Renan, Ernest on heroes and heroism    Share

"Let us pardon him his hope of a vain apocalypse, and of a second coming in great triumph upon the clouds of heaven. Perhaps these were the errors of others rather than his own; and if it be true that he himself shared the general illusion, what matters it, since his dream rendered him strong against death, and sustained him in a struggle to which he might otherwise have been unequal?"

Renan, Ernest on jesus christ    Share

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"Our opinions become fixed at the point where we stop thinking."

Renan, Ernest on opinions    Share

"To be free in an age like ours, one must be in a position of authority. That in itself would be enough to make me ambitious."

Renan, Ernest on authority    Share

"The simplest school boy is now familiar with truths for which Archimedes would have sacrificed his life."

Renan, Ernest on progress    Share

"As soon as sacrifice becomes a duty and necessity to mankind. I see no limit to the horizon which opens before him."

Renan, Ernest on sacrifice    Share

"No idea can succeed except at the expense of sacrifice; no one ever escapes without enduring strain from the struggle of life."

Renan, Ernest on sacrifice    Share

"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."

Renan, Ernest on spirituality
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"Man makes holy what he believes."

Renan, Ernest on belief    Share

"Communism is in conflict with human nature."

Renan, Ernest on communism and socialism    Share

"When people complain of life, it is almost always because they have asked impossible things of it."

Renan, Ernest on complaints and complaining    Share

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