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Jules Michelet Quotes

Jules Michelet was a French historian. He was born in Paris to a family with Huguenot traditions.

In his 1855 work, Histoire de France , Jules Michelet was the first historian to use and define the word Renaissance , as a period in Europe's cultural history that represented a drastic break from the Middle Ages , creating a modern understanding of humanity and its place in the world. Historian François Furet wrote that his History of the French Revolution remains "the cornerstone of all revolutionary historiography and is also a literary monument". His aphoristic style emphasized his anti-clerical republicanism. Wikipedia  

✵ 21. August 1798 – 9. February 1874
Jules Michelet photo
Jules Michelet: 6   quotes 0   likes

Famous Jules Michelet Quotes

“The history of France begins with the French language. Language is the primary sign of nationality.”

Jules Michelet

[Histoire de France, Michelet, Jules, Chamerot, 1861, 1, book 3]
History of France, 1833-1867

“With the world began a war that will only end with the world, and not before: that of man against nature, mind against matter, freedom against fate. History is nothing but the story of this endless struggle.”

Jules Michelet

[Introduction à l'histoire universelle, Michelet, Jules, Hachette, 1843, 9]
Introduction to Universal History , 1831, 1831

“France is the daughter of freedom. In human progress, the essential part, the main force, is called man. Man is his own Prometheus.”

Jules Michelet

[Peface de la Histoire de France, Michelet, Jules, Flammarion, 1893-1894, VIII]
History of France, 1833-1867

“The intimate fusion of races is the identity of our nation, its personality.”

Jules Michelet

[Introduction à l'histoire universelle, Michelet, Jules, Hachette, 1843, 9]
Introduction to Universal History , 1831, 1831

“England is an Empire, Germany a race; France is a person.”

Jules Michelet

[Histoire de France, Michelet, Jules, Chamerot, 1861, 103, book 3]
History of France, 1833-1867

“The last people in the world in whom the personality would consent to be absorbed into pantheism is the French.”

Jules Michelet

Introduction à l'histoire universelle, new ed. (Paris: Hachette, 1879), p. 136
Introduction to Universal History, 1831

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