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.
Ernest RenanThe simplest schoolboy is now familiar with truths for which Archimedes would have sacrificed his life.
Ernest RenanA grain of sand leads to the fall of a mountain when the moment has come for the mountain to fall.
Ernest RenanA 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.
Ernest RenanNone of the miracles with which ancient histories are filled, occurred under scientific conditions. Observation never once contradicted, teaches us that miracles occur only in periods and countries in which they are believed in and before persons disposed to believe in them.
Ernest RenanTrue 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.
Ernest RenanMuslims are the first victims of Islam. To liberate a Muslim from his religion is the best service that one can render him!
Ernest RenanMorality 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 RenanHuman 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 RenanTo be able to think freely, a man must be certain that no consequence will follow whatever he writes.
Ernest RenanIn 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 RenanAll the great things of humanity have been accomplished in the name of absolute principles.
Ernest RenanNever 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 RenanReligion is not a popular error; it is a great instinctive truth, sensed by the people, expressed by the people.
Ernest RenanGood 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 RenanForgetfulness, and I would even say historical error, are essential in the creation of a nation.
Ernest RenanIt is through Christianity that Judaism has really conquered the world. Christianity is the masterpiece of Judaism.
Ernest RenanAs soon as sacrifice becomes a duty and necessity to mankind. I see no limit to the horizon which opens before him.
Ernest RenanTo 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 RenanWhen people complain of life, it is almost always because they have asked impossible things of it.
Ernest RenanHis 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 RenanThe talent of historians lies in their creating a true ensemble out of facts which are but half true.
Ernest RenanThe epic disappeared along with the age of personal heroism; there can be no epic with artillery.
Ernest RenanHe 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 RenanTo have common glories in the past, a common will in the present; to have done great things together, to will to do the like again, — such are the essential conditions for the making of a people.
Ernest RenanSometimes 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 RenanThe only way of salvation for the world is by returning to thy allegiance.... Firm in my faith, I shall have force to withstand my evil counsellors, my skepticism, which leads me to doubt of the people, my restless spirit which, after truth has been brought to light, impels to go on searching for it.
Ernest RenanNo idea can succeed except at the expense of sacrifice; no one ever escapes without enduring strain from the struggle of life.
Ernest Renan