In our society, established upon a very rigorous idea of property, the position of the poor man is horrible; he has literally no place under the sun. There are no flowers, no shade, no grass but for him who possesses the earth. In the East these are the gifts of God, which belong to no man. The proprietor has but a slender privilege; nature is the patrimony of all.
—Ernest Renan, "Life of Jesus," Chapter X.
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