Top 15 Ernest Renan Quotes

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 ?

Getting its history wrong is part of being a nation

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.

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

Nature has made a race of workers; that is the Chinese race, with a marvelous dexterity of hand and hardly any feeling of honor; govern this race with justice by exacting from them through the competence of such government an ample dowry to the conquering race; the subordinate race will be satisfied; a race of workers of the earth, such is the Negro; let us be for him good and human, and everything will be in order -- a race of masters and soldiers, that is the European race.

La nature a fait une race d'ouvriers ; c'est la race chinoise, d'une dextérité de main merveilleuse sans presque aucun sentiment d'honneur; gouvernez-la avec justice , en prélevant d'elle pour le bienfait d'un tel gouvernement un ample douaire au profit de la race conquérante, elle sera satisfaite ; une race de travailleurs de la terre, c'est le nègre ; soyez pour lui bon et humain, et tout sera dans l'ordre; -- une race de maîtres et de soldats, c'est la race européenne .

Regere imperio populos, voilà notre vocation.

The regeneration of the inferior or bastard races by the superior ones is consistent with God's plans for humanity. The man of the people, in our countries, is always a fallen aristocrat; his hands are made to handle the sword rather than the laborer's tools. He prefers warring to working, that is, he returns to his original calling.

La régénération des races inférieures ou abâtardies par les races supérieures est dans l'ordre providentiel de l'humanité. L'homme du peuple est presque toujours chez nous un noble déclassé ; sa lourde main est bien mieux faite pour manier l'épée que l'outil servile. Plutôt que de travailler, il choisit de se battre, c'est- à-dire qu'il revient à son premier état. .

We aspire not to equality but to domination. Countries inhabited by foreign races must become again countries of serfs, farm laborers, and factory workers. The goal is not to suppress inequities, but, rather, to amplify them and to make of them a matter of course.

Colonization on a grand scale is a political necessity of absolutely the first order. A nation that does not colonize is irrevocably vowed to socialism, to war between rich and poor. The conquest of a nation of inferior race by a superior race, which establishes itself as the ruler, has nothing shocking about it.

La colonisation en grand est une nécessité politique tout à fait de premier ordre. Une nation qui ne colonise pas est irrévocablement vouée au socialisme, à la guerre du riche et du pauvre. La conquête d'un pays de race inférieure par une race supérieure, qui s'y établit pour le gouverner, n'a rien de choquant.

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?

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.

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.