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Ernest Renan Quotes

Joseph Ernest Renan was a French expert of Semitic 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 the Khazars, Turkic peoples who had adopted Jewish religion and migrated to Western Europe following the collapse of their khanate.



✵ 28. February 1823 – 2. October 1892   •   Other names Жозеф Эрнест Ренан
Ernest Renan photo
Ernest Renan: 11   quotes 1   like

Famous Ernest Renan Quotes

“Getting its history wrong is part of being a nation”

Ernest Renan

Attributed
Source: translated by Eric Hobsbawm on p. 12 of Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge University Press, 1992) from French original ("L'oubli et je dirai même l'erreur historique, sont un facteur essentiel de la formation d'une nation et c'est ainsi que le progrès des études historiques est souvent pour la nationalité un danger"), page 7-8 of Qu’est-ce qu’une nation ?

“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.”

Ernest Renan

Source: Vie de Jésus (The Life of Jesus) (1863), Ch. 7.

“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.”

Ernest Renan

Letter to his elder sister Henriette (1841).

“You may take great comfort from the fact that suffering inwardly for the sake of truth proves abundantly that one loves it and marks one out as being of the elect.”

Ernest Renan

Saint Sulpice and the Hidden God.
Ernest Renan: a Critical Biography (1964)

“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.”

Ernest Renan

Source: Vie de Jésus (The Life of Jesus) (1863), Ch. 5.

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

Ernest Renan

The Republic.
Ernest Renan: a Critical Biography (1964)

Ernest Renan Quotes

“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?”

Ernest Renan

Source: Vie de Jésus (The Life of Jesus) (1863), Ch. 17.

Death , Dreams , Hope , Error

“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

Oeuvres Complètes, vol. 3. L’Avenir de la Science (1890).

Men , God

“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.”

Ernest Renan

Source: Vie de Jésus (The Life of Jesus) (1863), Ch. 5.

Truth , World

“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

Source: Vie de Jésus (The Life of Jesus) (1863), Ch. 5.

World , Religion

“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

Orlando, in Caliban, act 2, sc. 1 (1878).

Men , Understanding

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