Tuesday, April 16, 2024 Text is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 licence.

Ernest Renan

« All quotes from this author
 

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

 
Ernest Renan

» Ernest Renan - all quotes »



Tags: Ernest Renan Quotes, Authors starting by R


Similar quotes

 

The controversy between rule of law and rule of men was never relevant to women — because, along with juveniles, imbeciles, and other classes of legal nonpersons, they had no access to law except through men.

 
Freda Adler
 

The worst that can happen under monarchy is rule by a single imbecile, but democracy often means the rule by an assembly of three or four hundred imbeciles.

 
Robert Anton Wilson
 

On the other hand, heroism is basic to the character of the Nordic peoples. This heroism of the ancient mythic period—and this is what is decisive—has never been lost, despite times of decline, so long as the Nordic blood was still alive. Heroism, in fact, took many forms, from the warrior nobility of Siegfried or Hercules to the intellectual nobility of Copernicus and Leonardo, the religious nobility of Eckehart and Lagarde, or the political nobility of Frederick the Great and Bismarck, and its substance has remained the same.

 
Alfred Rosenberg
 

English is a language of mass destruction. Lady Macbeth is a queen of mass destruction. Lear is a king of mass destruction. Hamlet is a prince of mass destruction. Shakespeare is a bard of mass destruction. And Moby Dick is a whale of mass destruction. Why are you a culture of death and destruction? Why do you obliterate villages, cities, and civilizations with your language of mass destruction? Is the destruction worth the destruction? For what purpose did you destroy my language? To impose the sovereignty of your rule of law with weapons of mass destruction—to then say: --I offer you my lifesaver. Now, we can communicate in the same language. English only, please.

 
Giannina Braschi
 

A six-year-old will not understand that “By and large it has been demonstrated that violence is counterproductive to the constructive interaction of persons and societies.” True. But a child can better understand that the rule out in the world and in the school is the same: Don’t hit people. Bad things happen. The child must understand this rule is connected to the first rule: People won’t share or play fair if you hit them.

 
Robert Fulghum
© 2009–2013Quotes Privacy Policy | Contact