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A Cannonball Travels Only Two Thousand Miles An Hour; Light Travels Two Hundred Thousand Miles A Second. Such Is The Superiority Of Jesus Christ Over Napoleon.

-Victor Hugo

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A Cannonball Travels Only

Victor Hugo

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A Cannonball Travels Only Two Thousand Miles An Hour; Light Travels Two Hundred Thousand Miles A Second. Such Is The Superiority Of Jesus Christ Over Napoleon.

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There Are Many Lovely Women, But No Perfect Ones.

A Doctor’s Door Should Never Be Closed, A Priest's Door Should Always Be Open.

Spira, Spera. (breathe, Hope)

The Thirst For The Infinite Proves Infinity.

Diamonds Are To Be Found Only In The Darkness Of The Earth, And Truth In The Darkness Of The Mind.

A Few Feet Under The Ground Reigns So Profound A Silence, And Yet So Much Tumult On The Surface!

One Cannot Be A Good Historian Of The Outward, Visible World Without Giving Some Thought To The Hidden, Private Life Of Ordinary People; And On The Other Hand One Cannot Be A Good Historian Of This Inner Life Without Taking Into Account Outward Events Where These Are Relevant.

Beauty Is As Useful As The Useful. More So, Perhaps. (le Beau Est Aussi Utile Que L'utile. Plus Peut-etre.)

Do You Hear The People Sing Lost In The Valley Of The Night? It Is The Music Of A People Who Are Climbing To The Light. For The Wretched Of The Earth There Is A Flame That Never Dies. Even The Darkest Night Will End And The Sun Will Rise.

It Is Sad To Tell, But After Having Tried Society, Which Had Caused His Misfortune, He Tried Providence Which Created Society, And Condemned It Also.

Habit Is The Nursery Of Errors.

Mothers Arms Are Made Of Tenderness, And Sweet Sleep Blesses The Child Who Lies Therein.

It Is The End. But Of What? The End Of France? No. The End Of Kings? Yes.

It Seems As Though, At The Approach Of A Certain Dark Hour, The Light Of Heaven Infills Those Who Are Leaving The Light Of Earth.

In The Relations Of Man With The Animals, With The Flowers, With All The Objects Of Creation, There Is A Whole Great Ethic, Scarcely Perceived As Yet, Which Will At Length Break Through Into The Light, And Which Will Be The Corollary And The Complement To Human Ethics.

God Became Man, Granted. The Devil Became A Woman.

You Would Have Imagined Her At One Moment A Maniac, At Another A Queen.

No Matter Who You Are, The Thought Of So Much Suffering And Degradation Must Cause You To Shudder At The Sight Of A Veil Or Cassock, Those Two Shrouds Of Human Invention.

From The Oyster To The Eagle, From The Swine To The Tiger, All Animals Are To Be Found In Men And Each Of Them Exists In Some Man, Sometimes Several At The Time. Animals Are Nothing But The Portrayal Of Our Virtues And Vices Made Manifest To Our Eyes, The Visible Reflections Of Our Souls. God Displays Them To Us To Give Us Food For Thought.

To Put Everything In Balance Is Good, To Put Everything In Harmony Is Better.

When, Like An Emir Of Tyrannic Power, Sirius Appears, And On The Horizon Black Bids Countless Stars Pursue Their Mighty Track.

Everything Changes. The Only Thing That Remains Immovable Across The Centuries And Fixes The Character Of A People Is Cooking.

Happiness Lies For Those Who Cry, Those Who Hurt, Those Who Have Searched, And Those Who Have Tried For Only They Can Appreciate The Importance Of People Who Have Touched Their Lives.

Is There Not In Every Human Soul A Primitive Spark, A Divine Element, Incorruptible In This World And Immortal In The Next, Which Can Be Developed By Goodness, Kindled, Lit Up, And Made To Radiate, And Which Evil Can Never Entirely Extinguish.

Great Blunders Are Often Made, Like Large Ropes, Of A Multitude Of Fibers. Take The Cable Thread By Thread, Take Separately All The Little Determining Motives, You Break Them One After Another, And You Say: That Is All! Wind Them And Twist Them Together, They Become An Enormity.

Religions Do A Useful Thing: They Narrow God To The Limits Of Man. Philosophy Replies By Doing A Necessary Thing: It Elevates Man To The Plane Of God.

Do Not Let It Be Your Aim To Be Something, But To Be Someone.

The Earlier Works Of A Man Of Genius Are Always Preferred To The Newer Ones, In Order To Prove That He Is Going Down Instead Of Up.

Every Bad Institution Of This World Ends By Suicide.

First Problem. To Produce Wealth. Second Problem. To Distribute It.

Revolutions Are Not Born Of Chance But Of Necessity.

Inanimate Objects Sometimes Appear Endowed With A Strange Power Of Sight. A Statue Notices, A Tower Watches, The Face Of An Edifice Contemplates.

...human Thought Has No Limit. At Its Risk And Peril, It Analyzes And Dissects Its Own Fascination. We Could Almost Say That, By A Sort Of Splendid Reaction, It Fascinates Nature; The Mysterious World Surrounding Us Returns What It Receives; It Is Likely That Contemplators Are Contemplated.

A Library Implies An Act Of Faith Which Generations, Still In Darkness Hid, Sign In Their Night In Witness Of The Dawn.

This First Glance Of A Soul Which Does Not Yet Know Itself Is Like Dawn In The Heavens; It Is The Awakening Of Something Radiant And Unknown.

What Says The Law? You Will Not Kill. How Does It Say It? By Killing!

Civil War? What Does That Mean? Is There Any Foreign War? Isn't Every War Fought Between Men, Between Brothers?

The Convent Is Supreme Egotism Resulting In Supreme Self-denial.

The Omnipotence Of Evil Has Never Resulted In Anything But Fruitless Efforts. Our Thoughts Always Escape From Whoever Tries To Smother Them.

It Is Often Necessary To Know How To Obey A Woman In Order Sometimes To Have The Right To Command Her.

Often When We Think We Are Knotting One Thread, We Are Tying Quite Another.

Ah," Cried Gavroche, "what Does This Mean? It Rains Again! ...if This Continues, I Withdraw My Subscription.

The Power Of A Glance Has Been So Much Abused In Love Stories, That It Has Come To Be Disbelieved In. Few People Dare Now To Say That Two Beings Have Fallen In Love Because They Have Looked At Each Other. Yet It Is In This Way That Love Begins, And In This Way Only.

A Day Will Come When A Cannon Will Be Exhibited In Museums, Just As Instruments Of Torture Are Now, And The People Will Be Astonished That Such A Thing Could Have Been.

Not Being Heard Is No Reason For Silence.

Knowledge Is A Weight Added To Conscience.

Wide Horizons Lead The Soul To Broad Ideas; Circumscribed Horizons Engender Narrow Ideas; This Sometimes Condemns Great Hearts To Become Small Minded.broad Ideas Hated By Narrow Ideas,-this Is The Very Struggle Of Progress.

Wonderful Nature Has A Double Meaning, Which Dazzles Great Minds And Blinds Uncultivated Souls. When Man Is Ignorant, When The Desert Is Filled With Visions, The Darkness Of Solitude Is Added To The Darkness Of Intelligence; Hence, In Man, The Possibilities Of Perdition

In The Opera We Call Love, The Libretto Is Almost Nothing.

I Am A Soul. I Know Well That What I Shall Render Up To The Grave Is Not Myself. That Which Is Myself Will Go Elsewhere. Earth, Thou Art Not My Abyss!

When I Speak To You About Myself, I Am Speaking To You About Yourself. How Is It You Don't See That?

Without At All Invalidating What We Have Just Said, We Believe That A Perpetual Remembrance Of The Tomb Is Proper For The Living. On This Point, The Priest And The Philosopher Agree: We Must Die.

There Are People Who Observe The Rules Of Honor As One Observes The Stars, From A Great Distance.

Love Is The Only Future God Offers.

Love, Thine Is The Future. Death, I Use Thee, But I Hate Thee. Citizens, There Shall Be In The Future Neither Darkness Nor Thunderbolts; Neither Ferocious Ignorance Nor Blood For Blood.

Love Is Like A Tree: It Grows By Itself, Roots Itself Deeply In Our Being And Continues To Flourish Over A Heart In Ruin. The Inexplicable Fact Is That The Blinder It Is, The More Tenacious It Is. It Is Never Stronger Than When It Is Completely Unreasonable.

The Hatred Of Luxury Is Not An Intelligent Hatred. It Implies A Hatred Of Arts.

No Doubt It Was Necessary To Civilize Man In Relation To Man. That Work Is Already Advanced And Is Making Progress Every Day. But Man Must Be Civilized Also In Relation To Nature.

We Are All Under Sentence Of Death, But With A Sort Of Indefinite Reprieve.

Music Expresses That Which Cannot Be Said And On Which It Is Impossible To Be Silent.

Puns Are The Droppings Of Soaring Wits.

The Smaller It Is The Heart, More Hatred Houses.

Do Not Ask The Name Of The Person Who Seeks A Bed For The Night. He Who Is Reluctant To Give His Name Is The One Who Most Needs Shelter.

Is It Not A Thing Divine To Have A Smile Which, None Know How, Has The Power To Lighten The Weight Of That Enormous Chain Which All The Living In Common Drag Behind Them?

Great Blunders Are Often Made, Like Large Ropes, Of A Multitude Of Fibres.

You Ask Me What Forces Me To Speak? A Strange Thing; My Conscience.

I Believe That Pity Is A Law Like Justice, And That Kindness Is A Duty Like Uprightness. That Which Is Weak Has A Right To The Kindness And Pity Of That Which Is Strong. In The Relations Of Man With The Animals...there Is A Great Ethic, Scarcely Perceived As Yet, Which Will At Length Break Through Into The Light, And Which Will Be The Corollary And The Complement To Humans Ethics. Are There Not Here Unsounded Depths For The Thinker? Is One To Think Oneself Mad Because One Has The Sentiment Of Universal Pity In One's Heart?

If A Writer Wrote Merely For His Time, I Would Have To Break My Pen And Throw It Away.

Concision In Style, Precision In Thought, Decision In Life.

As We Have Explained, In First Love The Soul Is Taken Long Before The Body; Later The Body Is Taken Long Before The Soul; Sometimes The Soul Is Not Taken At All.

Animals Are Nothing But The Portrayal Of Our Virtues And Vices Made Manifest To Our Eyes, The Visible Reflections Of Our Souls.

If The Infinite Had No Me, Then Me Would Be Its Limit. It Would Not Be The Infinite, Therefore It Would Not Be.

Winter Changes Into Stone The Water Of Heaven And The Heart Of Man.

What I Feel For You Seems Less Of Earth And More Of A Cloudless Heaven.

Women Play With Their Beauty As Children Do With Their Knives. They Wound Themselves With It.

Kings Are For Nations In Their Swaddling-clothes: France Has Attained Her Majority.

Vengeance Comes From The Individual And Punishment From God.

Do Not Economize On The Hymeneal Rites; Do Not Prune Them Of Their Splendor, Nor Split Farthings On The Day When You Are Radiant. A Wedding Is Not House-keeping.

When Liberty Returns, I Will Return.

Promise To Give Me A Kiss On My Brow When I Am Dead.--i Shall Feel It.

Men Like Me Are Impossible Until The Day When They Become Necessary.

Reason Is Intelligence Taking Exercise. Imagination Is Intelligence With An Erection.

There Is One Thing Stronger Than All The Armies In The World, And That Is An Idea Whose Time As Come.

And If It Happened To Be A Christmas-night When The Great Bell Seemed To Rattle In Its Throat As It Called The Faithful To The Midnight Mass, There Was Such An Indescribable Air Of Life Spread Over The Sombre Facade That The Great Door-way Looked As If It Were Swallowing The Entire Crowd, And The Rose-window Staring At Them.

Now, One Cannot Read Nonsense With Impunity.

If You Want To Civilize A Man, Begin With His Grandmother.

A War Between Europeans Is A Civil War.

Let Us Admit, Without Bitterness, That The Individual Has His Distinct Interests And Can, Without Felony, Stipulate For Those Interests And Defend Them. The Present Has Its Pardonable Amount Of Egotism; Momentary Life Has Its Claims, And Cannot Be Expected To Sacrifice Itself Incessantly To The Future. The Generation Which Is In Its Turn Passing Over The Earth Is Not Forced To Abridge Its Life For The Sake Of The Generations, Its Equals After All, Whose Turn Shall Come Later On.

The Transept Belfry And The Two Towers Were To Him Three Great Cages, The Birds In Which, Taught By Him, Would Sing For Him Alone. Yet It Was These Same Bells Which Had Made Him Deaf; But Mothers Are Often Fondest Of The Child Who Has Made Them Suffer Most.

Love Is A Fault; So Be It.

The Wise Man Does Not Grow Old, But Ripens.

The Day That A Woman Who Is Passing Before You Sheds A Light Upon You As She Goes, You Are Lost, You Love. You Have Then But One Thing To Do: To Think Of Her So Earnestly That She Will Be Compelled To Think Of You.

Thought Is The Work Of The Intellect, Reverie Is Its Self-indulgence. To Substitute Day-dreaming For Thought Is To Confuse A Poison With A Source Of Nourishment.

He Had Slipped, Climbed, Rolled, Searched, Walked, Persevered, That Is All. Such Is The Secret Of All Triumphs.

Monsieur' To A Convict Is A Glass Of Water To A Man Dying Of Thirst At Sea; Ignominy Thirsts For Respect.

The Truth Of An Upright Man Must Be Accepted On His Own Terms. Moreover, Since Natures Vary, We Must Agree That All The Beauties Of Human Excellence May Be Fostered By Faiths That We Do Not Share.

Philosophy Is The Microscope Of Thought. Everything Desires To Flee From It, But Nothing Escapes It.

People Weighed Down With Troubles Do Not Look Back; They Know Only Too Well That Misfortune Stalks Them.

There Are Many Tongues To Talk, And But Few Heads To Think.

I Have Been Loving You A Little More Every Minute Since This Morning.

Blessed Be Providence Which Has Given To Each His Toy: The Doll To The Child, The Child To The Woman, The Woman To The Man, The Man To The Devil!

The Holy Law Of Jesus Christ Governs Our Civilisation, But It Does Not Yet Permeate It.

The Miserable's Name Is Man; He Is Agonizing In All Climes, And He Is Groaning In All Languages.

Astronomy, That Micography Of Heaven, Is The Most Magnificent Of The Sciences. ... Astronomy Has Its Clear Side And Its Luminous Side; On Its Clear Side It Is Tinctured With Algebra, On Its Luminous Side With Poetry.

Who Then Understands The Reciprocal Flux And Reflux Of The Infinitely Great And The Infinitely Small, The Echoing Of Causes In The Abysses Of Being, And The Avalanches Of Creation?

I Think I Missed My Calling. I Should Have Been An Interior Decorator.

Mirrors, Those Revealers Of The Truth, Are Hated; That Does Not Prevent Them From Being Of Use.

Phenomena Intersect; To See But One Is To See Nothing.

Genius: The Superhuman In Man.

If I Have Not Been Exposed And Am Not In Any Danger Of Pursuit. But I Have Been Exposed, I Am Pursued - By Myself! That Is A Pursuer That Does Not Readily Let Go.

In Love, Such A Word, Whispered, Is A Mysterious Kiss Of The Soul To The Soul.

Never Laugh At Those Who Suffer; Suffer Sometimes Those Who Laugh.

Revolution Is The Larva Of Civilization.

Short As Life Is, We Make It Still Shorter By The Careless Waste Of Time.

I Like The Laughter That Opens The Lips And The Heart, Shows At The Same Time The Pearls And The Soul.

To Learn To Read Is To Light A Fire; Every Syllable That Is Spelled Out Is A Spark.

Youth Is The Future Smiling At A Stranger, Which Is Itself.

The Peculiarity Of Sunrise Is To Make Us Laugh At All Our Terrors Of The Night, And Our Laugh Is Always Proportioned To The Fear We Have Had.

The Man Who Does Not Know Other Languages, Unless He Is A Man Of Genius, Necessarily Has Deficiencies In His Ideas.

Winter Is On My Head, But Eternal Spring Is In My Heart. The Nearer I Approach The End, The Plainer I Hear Around Me The Immortal Symphonies Of The Worlds Which Invite Me. . . . For Half A Century I Have Been Writing Thoughts In Prose, Verse, History, Drama, Romance, Tradition, Satire, Ode, And Song. I Have Tried Them All, But I Feel I Have Not Said A Thousandth Part Of That Which Is Within Me. When I Go Down To The Grave, I Can Say "i Have Finished My Day's Work," But I Cannot Say "i Have Finished My Life's Work."

Men Are Still Men. The Despot's Wickedness Comes Of Ill Teaching, And Of Power's Excess,-- Comes Of The Purple He From Childhood Wears, Slaves Would Be Tyrants If The Chance Were Theirs.

Life Is A Theatre Set In Which There Are But Few Practicable Entrances.

There Is A Determined Though Unseen Bravery That Defends Itself Foot By Foot In The Darkness Against The Fatal Invasions Of Necessity And Dishonesty. Noble And Mysterious Triumphs That No Eye Sees, And No Fame Rewards, And No Flourish Of Triumph Salutes. Life, Misfortunes, Isolation, Abandonment, Poverty, Are Battlefields That Have Their Heroes; Obscure Heroes, Sometimes Greater Than The Illustrious Heroes.

Men Become Accustomed To Poison By Degrees.

There Is Nothing Like A Dream To Create The Future.

Smallness In A Great Man Seems Smaller By Its Disproportion With All The Rest.

How Did It Happen That Their Lips Came Together? How Does It Happen That Birds Sing, That Snow Melts, That The Rose Unfolds, That The Dawn Whitens Behind The Stark Shapes Of Trees On The Quivering Summit Of The Hill? A Kiss, And All Was Said.

Nothing Discernible To The Eye Of The Spirit Is More Brilliant Or Obscure Than Man; Nothing Is More Formidable, Complex, Mysterious, And Infinite. There Is A Prospect Greater Than The Sea, And It Is The Sky; There Is A Prospect Greater Than The Sky, And It Is The Human Soul.

The Real, Native South Seas Food Is Lousy. You Can't Eat It.

A Wretched Woman Is More Unfortunate Than A Wretched Man.

Logic Ignores The Almost, Just As The Sun Ignores The Candle.

...but Listen, There Will Be More Joy In Heaven Over The Tears Of A Repentant Sinner Than Over The White Robes Of A Hundred Just Men.

Dry Happiness Is Like Dry Bread. We Eat, But We Do Not Dine. I Wish For The Superfluous, For The Useless, For The Extravagant, For The Too Much, For That Which Is Not Good For Anything.

Because One Doesn't Like The Way Things Are Is No Reason To Be Unjust Towards God.

I Have Examined The Death Penalty Under Each Of Its Two Aspects: As A Direct Action, And As An Indirect One. What Does It Come Down To? Nothing But Something Horrible And Useless, Nothing But A Way Of Shedding Blood That Is Called A Crime When An Individual Commits It, But Is Sadly Called "justice" When Society Brings It About. Make No Mistake, You Lawmakers And Judges, In The Eyes Of God As In Those Of Conscience, What Is A Crime When Individuals Do It Is No Less An Offense When Society Commits The Deed.

The Rich's Paradise Was Created By The Poor's Hell.

The Man Is Placed Where The Earth Ends, The Woman, Where The Heaven Starts.

I Am Not In The World To Care For My Life, But For Souls.

These Greek Capitals, Black With Age, And Quite Deeply Graven In The Stone, With I Know Not What Signs Peculiar To Gothic Calligraphy Imprinted Upon Their Forms And Upon Their Attitudes, As Though With The Purpose Of Revealing That It Had Been A Hand Of The Middle Ages Which Had Inscribed Them There, And Especially The Fatal And Melancholy Meaning Contained In Them, Struck The Author Deeply.

And Do You Know Monsieur Marius? I Believe I Was A Little In Love With You.

When Two Souls Have Finally Found Each Other, There Is Established Between Them A Union Which Begins On Earth And Continues Forever In Heaven.

England Has Two Books, The Bible And Shakespeare. England Made Shakespeare,but The Bible Made England.

Whether We Be Italians Or Frenchmen, Misery Concerns Us All. Ever Since History Has Been Written, Ever Since Philosophy Has Meditated, Misery Has Been The Garment Of The Human Race; The Moment Has At Length Arrived For Tearing Off That Rag, And For Replacing, Upon The Naked Limbs Of The Man-people, The Sinister Fragment Of The Past With The Grand Purple Robe Of The Dawn.

Nothing Is More Dangerous Than Discontinued Labor; It Is Habit Lost. A Habit Easy To Abandon, Difficult To Resume.

If He Had Had All Peru In His Pocket, He Would Certainly Have Given It To This Dancer; But Gringoire Had Not Peru In His Pocket; And Besides, America Was Not Yet Discovered. (p. 66)

Love At First Sight

Everything Speaks: The Flowing Airstream And The Sailing Halycon, The Blade Of Grass, The Flower, The Bud, The Element; Did You Imagine The Universe To Be Otherwise?

If You Don't Build Castles In The Air You Won't Build Anything On The Ground.

Castles In The Air

Let The One Fight For His Flag, And The Other For His Ideal, And Let Them Both Imagine That They Are Fighting For The Country; The Strife Will Be Colossal.

Joie Est Mon Caractere, C'est La Faute A Voltaire; Misere Est Mon Trousseau C'est La Faute A Rousseau. [joy Is My Character, 'tis The Fault Of Voltaire; Misery Is My Trousseau 'tis The Fault Of Rousseau.] - Gavroche

The Tomb Is Not A Blind Alley: It Is A Thoroughfare. It Closes On The Twilight. It Opens On The Dawn.

Whenever A Man's Friends Begin To Compliment Him About Looking Young, He May Be Sure That They Think He Is Growing Old.

Let Us Leave To The Brain What Belongs To It, And Agree That The Work Of The Men Of Genius Is Of The Superhuman, The Offspring Of Man.

Life Is A Flower Of Which Love Is Honey.

I Met In The Street A Very Poor Young Man Who Was In Love. His Hat Was Old, His Coat Worn, His Cloak Was Out At The Elbows, The Water Passed Through His Shoes, - And The Stars Through His Soul.

Enthusiasm Is The Fever Of Reason.

All Roads Are Blocked To A Philosophy Which Reduces Everything To The Word 'no.' To 'no' There Is Only One Answer And That Is 'yes.

We Are Reassured Almost As Foolishly As We Are Alarmed; Human Nature Is So Constituted.

It Is The Essence Of Truth That It Is Never Excessive.... We Must Not Resort To The Flame Where Only Light Is Required.

Exaggeration Is

Winter Is On My Head, But Eternal Spring Is In My Heart; I Breathe At This Hour The Fragrance Of The Lilacs, The Violets, And The Roses, As At Twenty Years Ago.

Daring Is The Price Of Progress. All Splendid Conquests Are The Prize Of Boldness, More Or Less.

The Animal Is Ignorant Of The Fact That He Knows. The Man Is Aware Of The Fact That He Is Ignorant.

Seeing So Much Poverty Everywhere Makes Me Think That God Is Not Rich. He Gives The Appearance Of It, But I Suspect Some Financial Difficulties.

O Youth! Thou Often Tearest Thy Wings Against The Thorns Of Voluptuousness.

My Greatness Does Not Extend To This Shelf.

Right Is Right Only When Entire.

As For The Author, He Is Profoundly Unaware Of What The Classical Or Romantic Genre Might Consist Of.... In Literature, As In Allthings, There Is Only The Good And The Bad, The Beautiful And The Ugly, The True And The False.

Die, Very Good, But Do Not Make Others Die. Suicides Like The One Which Is About To Take Place Here Are Sublime, But Suicide Is Restricted, And Does Not Allow Of Extension; And So Soon As It Affects Your Neighbors, Suicide Becomes Murder.

The Left-handed Are Precious; They Take Places Which Are Inconvenient For The Rest.

Every Body Drags Its Shadow, And Every Mind Its Doubt.

When You Get An Idea Into Your Head You Find It In Everything.

One Believes Others Will Do What He Will Do To Himself.

A Man Without A Woman Is Like A Pistol Without A Trigger; It Is The Woman Who Makes The Man Go Off.

The Soul Helps The Body, And At Certain Moments Raises It. It Is The Only Bird That Sustains Its Cage.

While Contemplating The Bride, And Eyeing The Cake Of Soap, He Muttered Between His Teeth: 'tuesday. It Was Not Tuesday. Was It Tuesday? Perhaps It Was Tuesday. Yes, It Was Tuesday.' No One Has Ever Discovered To What This Monologue Referred. Yes, Perchance, This Monologue Had Some Connection With The Last Occasion On Which He Had Dined, Three Days Before, For It Was Now Friday.

Oh Lord! Open The Doors Of Night For Me So That I May Leave This Place And Disappear.

...though We Chisel Away As Best We Can At The Mysterious Block From Which Our Life Is Made, The Black Vein Of Destiny Continually Reappears.

At The Shrine Of Friendship Never Say Die, Let The Wine Of Friendship Never Run Dry

The English Took The Eagle And Austrians The Eaglet. [fr., L'angleterre Prit L'aigle, Et L'autriche L'aiglon.]

We May Remark In Passing That To Be Blind And Beloved May, In This World Where Nothing Is Perfect, Be Among The Most Strangely Exquisite Forms Of Happiness. The Supreme Happiness In Life Is The Assurance Of Being Loved; Of Being Loved For Oneself, Even In Spite Of Oneself; And This Assurance The Blind Man Possesses. In His Affliction, To Be Served Is To Be Caressed. Does He Lack Anything? No. Possessing Love He Is Not Deprived Of Light. A Love, Moreover, That Is Wholly Pure. There Can Be No Blindness Where There Is This Certainty.

Our Life Dreams The Utopia. Our Death Achieves The Ideal.

Does Not Beauty Confer A Benefit Upon Us, Even By The Simple Fact Of Being Beautiful?

For There Are Many Great Deeds Done In The Small Struggles Of Life.

The Need Of The Immaterial Is The Most Deeply Rooted Of All Needs. One Must Have Bread; But Before Bread, One Must Have The Ideal.

Great Grief Is A Divine And Terrible Radiance Which Transfigures The Wretched.

Anger May Be Foolish And Absurd, And One May Be Wrongly Irritated, But A Man Never Feels Outraged Unless In Some Respect He Is Fundamentally Right.

The Ode Lives Upon The Ideal, The Epic Upon The Grandiose, The Drama Upon The Real.

Jesus Wept; Voltaire Smiled. From That Divine Tear And From That Human Smile Is Derived The Grace Of Present Civilization.

Love Is The Salutation Of The Angel To The Stars

One Of The Hardest Tasks Is To Extract Continually From One's Soul An Almost Inexhaustible Ill Will.

No Religion But Blasphemes A Little.

Forty Is The Old Age Of Youth; Fifty The Youth Of Old Age.

I Only Take A Half Share In The Civil War; I Am Willing To Die, I Am Not Willing To Kill.

It May Be Remarked In Passing That Success Is An Ugly Thing. Men Are Deceived By Its False Resemblences To Merit.

A Smile Is The Same As Sunshine; It Banishes Winter From The Human Countenance.

This Child Whom We Love, Brings Daylight Into Our Soul.

True Or False, That Which Is Said Of Men Often Occupies As Important A Place In Their Lives, And Above All In Their Destinies, As That Which They Do.

Idleness, Pleasure, What Abysses! To Do Nothing Is A Dreary Course To Take, Be Sure Of It. To Live Idle Upon The Substance Of Society! To Be Useless, That Is To Say, Noxious! This Leads Straight To The Lowest Depth Of Misery.

I Love All Men Who Think, Even Those Who Think Otherwise Than Myself.

This Book Should Be Read As One Would Read The Book Of A Dead Man.

The Beginning As Well As The End Of All His Thoughts Was Hatred Of Human Law, That Hatred Which, If It Be Not Checked In Its Growth By Some Providential Event, Becomes, In A Certain Time, Hatred Of Society, Then Hatred Of The Human Race, And Then Hatred Of Creation, And Reveals Itself By A Vague And Incessant Desire To Injure Some Living Being, It Matters Not Who.

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