A nation is a soul,a spiritual principle.
This is made up of two things which are really only one.
One in the past, the other in the present.
One is the collectve ownership of a rich legacy of memories, the other is the present consent or desire to
live together,
the will to continue to develop the inheritance it has received intact.........
The nation, like the individual,
is the culmination of a long past of striving, sacrifice and dedication.
Renan's Sorbonne lecture of 1882:
