The epic disappeared along with the age of personal heroism; there can be no epic with artillery.
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 RenanEvery rebel is, with us, more or less a soldier who has missed his vocation, a being made for a heroic life ... The European race is a race of masters and soldiers. If you reduce this noble race to the work in a slave's prison like Negroes or Chinamen, it will rebel.
Ernest Renan