Literary Birthday – 21 August – Jules Michelet

Jules Michelet was born 21 August 1798, and died 9 February 1874.

Seven Quotes

1. Woman is a miracle of divine contradictions
2. You are one of the forces of nature.
3. He who would confine his thought to present time will not understand present reality.
4. Achieving a goal is nothing. The getting there is everything.
5. He who knows how to be poor knows everything.
6. What manly eloquence could produce such an effect as woman’s silence?
7. The historian’s first duties are sacrilege and the mocking of false gods. They are his indispensable instruments for establishing the truth.

Jules Michelet was a French historian best known for his monumental Histoire de France (History of France). Michelet was the first historian to use and define the word Renaissance as a period in Europe’s cultural history that represented a break from the Middle Ages, creating a modern understanding of humanity and its place in the world. Michelet’s method, an attempt to resurrect the past by immersing his own personality in his narrative, resulted in a historical synthesis of great dramatic power.

Source for Image: Thomas Couture, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons   https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jules_Michelet_par_Thomas_Couture_(cropped).jpg

by Amanda Patterson

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