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You are in the first place a Christian: I am in the first place a historian. There is a gulf between us.

— Leopold von Ranke

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Christianity

More quotes by Leopold von Ranke

The ultimate aim of historical writing is the bringing before us the whole truth.

Rigorous presentation of the facts, however conditional and lacking in beauty they may be, is without question the supreme law.

To history has been attributed the function to judge the past, to instruct ourselves for the advantage of the future. Such a lofty function the present work does not attempt. It aims merely to show how it actually took place.

A collection of national histories, whether on a larger or a smaller scale, is not what we mean by Universal History, for in such a work the general connection of things is liable to be obscured. To recognise this connection, to trace the sequence of those great events which link all nations together and control their destinies, is the task which the science of Universal History undertakes.

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Must then a Christ perish in torment in every age to save those that have no imagination?

George Bernard Shaw Saint Joan (1923)

The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence, from Jerusalem, of a lunatic asylum.

Havelock Ellis

Christianity offers reasons for not fearing death or the universe, and in so doing it fails to teach adequately the virtue of courage.

Bertrand Russell Education and the Social Order (1932)

Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law [this quote is referring to English Common Law].

Thomas Jefferson Vol. 1 Whether Christianity is Part of the Common Law (1764)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Leopold von Ranke (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.