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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.

-Victor Hugo

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Victor Hugo

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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.

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A Phenomenon Often Seen. A Sceptic Adhering To A Believer; That Is As Simple As The Law Of The Complementary Colours. What We Lack Attracts Us. Nobody Loves The Light Like The Blind Man.

If You Look In The Eyes Of The Young, You See Flame. If You Look In The Eyes Of The Old, You See Light.

Gavroche Had Fallen Only To Rise Again; He Sat Up, A Long Stream Of Blood Rolled Down His Face, He Raised Both Arms In Air, Looked In The Direction Whence The Shot Came, And Began To Sing.

Nothing Can Be Sadder Or More Profound Than To See A Thousand Things For The First And Last Time.

The Flesh Is The Upper Surface Of The Unknown.

To Love Is The Half Of To Believe.

The Man Who Fights Against His Own Country Is Never A Hero.

Teach The Ignorant As Much As You Can; Society Is Culpable In Not Providing A Free Education For All And It Must Answer For The Night Which It Produces. If The Soul Is Left In Darkness Sins Will Be Committed. The Guilty One Is Not He Who Commits The Sin, But He Who Causes The Darkness.

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

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

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

Sublime Upon Sublime Scarcely Presents A Contrast, And We Need A Little Rest From Everything, Even The Beautiful.

During A Wise Man's Whole Life, His Destiny Holds His Philosophy In A State Of Siege.

There Is One Spectacle Grander Than The Sea, That Is The Sky; There Is One Spectacle Grander Than The Sky, That Is The Interior Of The Soul.

There Is Suffering In The Light; In Excess It Burns. Flame Is Hostile To The Wing. To Burn And Yet To Fly, This Is The Miracle Of Genius.

True Thinkers Are Characterized By A Blending Of Clearness And Mystery.

It Is Nothing To Die. It Is Frightful Not To Live.

There Are Plenty Who Regard A Wall Behind Which Something Is Happening As A Very Curious Thing.

Knowledge Is A Weight Added To Conscience.

There Is A Material Advancement; We Desire It. There Is, Also, A Moral Grandeur; We Hold Fast To It.

Dreaming Is Happiness. Waiting Is Life.

The Book Which The Reader Now Holds In His Hands, From One End To The Other, As A Whole And In Its Details, Whatever Gaps, Exceptions, Or Weaknesses It May Contain, Treats Of The Advance From Evil To Good, From Injustice To Justice, From Falsity To Truth, From Darkness To Daylight, From Blind Appetite To Conscience, From Decay To Life, From Bestiality To Duty, From Hell To Heaven, From Limbo To God. Matter Itself Is The Starting-point, And The Point Of Arrival Is The Soul. Hydra At The Beginning, An Angel At The End.

Man Does Not Understand Nor Accept Immortality Except On Condition Of Self-remembrance.

There Is But One Way Of Refusing To-morrow, That Is To Die.

It Is A Terrible Thing To Be Happy! How Pleased We Are With It! How All-sufficient We Think It! How, Being In Possession Of The False Aim Of Life, Happiness, We Forget The True Aim, Duty!

In The Domain Of Art There Is No Light Without Heat.

Do You Know What Friendship Is?' He Asked. 'yes,' Replied The Gypsy; 'it Is To Be Brother And Sister; Two Souls Which Touch Without Mingling, Two Fingers On One Hand.' 'and Love?' Pursued Gringoire. 'oh! Love!' Said She, And Her Voice Trembled, And Her Eye Beamed. 'that Is To Be Two And To Be But One. A Man And A Woman Mingled Into One Angel. It Is Heaven.

The Guillotine Is The Ultimate Expression Of Law, And Its Name Is Vengeance; It Is Not Neutral, Nor Does It Allow Us To Remain Neutral.

It Is Not So Easy To Keep Silent When The Silence Is A Lie.

"animals Are Happy," Said The Queen. "they Run No Risk Of Going To Hell." "they Are There Already," Replied Josiana.

Curiosity Is Gluttony. To See Is To Devour.

Wisdom Is A Sacred Communion.

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

Let Us Fear The Worst, But Work With Faith; The Best Will Always Take Care Of Itself.

Progress Is Not Accomplished In One Stage.

To Love Or Have Loved Is All-sufficing. We Must Not Ask For More. No Other Pearl Is To Be Found In The Shadowfolds Of Life. To Love Is An Accomplishment.

A Man Is Not Idle Because He Is Absorbed In Thought. There Is A Visible Labor And There Is An Invisible Labor.

France Is Great Because She Is France.

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

My Misfortune Is That I Still Resemble A Man Too Much. I Should Liked To Be Wholly A Beast Like That Goat. - Quasimodo

Laughter Is The Sun That Drives Winter From The Human Face.

Style Is The Substance Of The Subject Called Unceasingly To The Surface.

The World Is The Expanding Greece And Greece Is The Shrinking World.

An Increase Of Tenderness Always Ended By Boiling Over And Turning To Indignation. He Was At The Point Where We Seek To Adopt A Course, And To Accept What Tears Us Apart.

When People Look Back At Their Childhood Or Youth, Their Wistfulness Comes From The Memory, Not Of What Their Lives Had Been In Those Years, But Of What Life Had Then Promised To Be. The Expectation Of Some Indefinable Splendor, Of The Unusual, The Exciting, The Great Is An Attribute Of Youth And The Process Of Aging Is The Process Of That Expectations' Gradual Extinction. One Does Not Have To Let It Happen. But That Fire Dies For Lack Of Fuel, Under The Gray Weight Of Disappointments.

Friend Is Sometimes A Word Devoid Of Meaning; Enemy, Never.

The Soul Does Not Give Itself Up To Despair Until It Has Exhausted All Illusions.

Paris Is A Sum Total. Paris Is The Ceiling Of The Human Race. All This Prodigious City Is An Epitome Of Dead And Living Manners And Customs. He Who Sees Paris, Seems To See All History Through With The Sky And Constellations In The Intervals.

Profound Hearts, Wise Minds, Take Life As God Makes It; It Is A Long Trial, And Unintelligible Preparation For The Unknown Destiny.

There Have Been In This Century Only One Great Man And One Great Thing: Napoleon And Liberty. For Want Of The Great Man, Let Us Have The Great Thing.

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

It Is By Suffering That Human Beings Become Angels.

As For The Bishop, The Sight Of The Guillotine Was A Great Shock To Him, From Which He Recovered Only Slowly.

Right Is Right Only When Entire.

The Drama Is Complete Poetry. The Ode And The Epic Contain It Only In Germ; It Contains Both Of Them In A State Of High Development, And Epitomizes Both.

The Most Powerful Symptom Of Love Is A Tenderness Which Becomes At Times Almost Insupportable.

Doing Nothing Is Happiness For Children And Misery For Old Men.

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

To Rise From Error To Truth Is Rare And Beautiful.

To Know How To Distinguish The Agitation Arising From Covetousness, From The Agitation Arising From Principles, To Fight The One And Aid The Other, In This Lies The Genius And The Power Of Great Revolutionary Leaders.

Revolutionary Leaders

I See Black Light (his Last Words)

Winter Is On My Head, But Eternal Spring Is In My Heart.

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

Friendship Exists Outside Our Modern Economy Of Scarcity... It's Not About Apportioning Vanishing Resources Of Time And Energy. Friendship Is A Blessed Relic Of The Ancient Economy Of The Gift, And The Time Freely Given To People Dear To You Actually Creates Magical Abundance.

There Is Always More Misery Among The Lower Classes Than There Is Humanity In The Higher.

If Nobody Loved, The Sun Would Go Out.

To Die For Lack Of Love Is Horrible. The Asphyxia Of The Soul.

Lastly, This Threefold Poetry Flows From Three Great Sources - The Bible, Homer, Shakespeare.... The Bible Before The Iliad, The Iliad Before Shakespeare.

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

It Is Ourselves We Have To Fear. Prejudice Is The Real Robber, And Vice The Real Murderer.

Inspiration And Genius -one And The Same.

Out Milky Way Is The Dwelling; The Nebulae Are The City.

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.

Fashions Have Done More Harm Than Revolutions.

It Is God Who Makes Woman Beautiful, It Is The Devil Who Makes Her Pretty.

Wherever The Turkish Hoof Trods, No Grass Grows.

She Had Had Sweet Dreams, Which Possibly Arose From The Fact That Her Little Bed Was Very White.

To Err Is Human. To Loaf Is Parisian.

A Faith Is A Necessity To A Man. Woe To Him Who Believes In Nothing.

God Put In Man Thought; Society, Action; Nature, Revery.

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

A Compliment Is Something Like A Kiss Through A Veil.

It Has Become Necessary To Call The Attention Of European Governments To A Fact Which Is Apparently So Insignificant That The Governments Seem Not To Notice It. The Fact Is This: An Entire People Is Being Annihilated. Where? In Europe. Are There Witnesses? One Witness, The Entire World. Do The Governments See It? No.

Be Like The Bird Who, Pausing In Her Flight Awhile On Boughs Too Slight, Feels Them Give Way Beneath Her, And Yet Sings, Knowing She Hath Wings.

There Is Such A Thing As The Pressure Of Darkness.

Strange To Say, The Luminous World Is The Invisible World; The Luminous World Is That Which We Do Not See. Our Eyes Of Flesh See Only Night.

Nothing Awakens Reminiscence Like An Aroma.

There Is A Sacred Horror About Everything Grand. It Is Easy To Admire Mediocrity And Hills; But Whatever Is Too Lofty, A Genius As Well As A Mountain, An Assembly As Well As A Masterpiece, Seen Too Near, Is Appalling.

The Mother...swinging The Children By Pulling On A Length Of String, While At The Same Time She Kept And Eye On Them With That Protective Watchfulness, Half Animal, Half Angelic, Which Is The Quality Of Motherhood.

Love Is The Only Future God Offers.

In Shakespeare The Birds Sing, The Bushes Are Clothed With Green, Hearts Love, Souls Suffer, The Cloud Wanders, It Is Hot, It Is Cold, Night Falls, Time Passes, Forests And Multitudes Speak, The Vast Eternal Dream Hovers Over All. Sap And Blood, All Forms Of The Multiple Reality, Actions And Ideas, Man And Humanity, The Living And The Life, Solitudes, Cities, Religions, Diamonds And Pearls, Dung-hills And Charnelhouses, The Ebb And Flow Of Beings, The Steps Of Comers And Goers, All, All Are On Shakespeare And In Shakespeare.

As We Have Said, Robust Souls Are Sometimes Almost, But Not Entirely, Overthrown By Strokes Of Misfortune....despair Has Steps Leading Upward. From Total Depression We Rise To Despondency, From Despondency To Affliction, From Affliction To Melancholy. Melancholy Is A Twilight State In Which Suffering Transmutes Into A Somber Joy....melancholy Is The Enjoyment Of Being Sad.

The Human Soul Has Still Greater Need Of The Ideal Than Of The Real. It Is By The Real That We Exist; It Is By The Ideal That We Live.

...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.

‎"dost Thou Understand? I Love Thee!" He Cried Again."what Love!" Said The Unhappy Girl With A Shudder.he Resumed,--"the Love Of A Damned Soul.

Virtue Has A Veil, Vice A Mask.

The Persistence Of An All-absorbing Idea Is Terrible.

Algebra Applies To The Clouds.

When Dictatorship Is A Fact, Revolution Becomes A Right.

France Lost A Great Novel Last Night.

The Peasants Of The Asturias Believe That In Every Litter Of Wolves There Is One Pup That Is Killed By The Mother For Fear That On Growing Up It Would Devour The Other Little Ones.

There Are Moments When A Rope's End, A Pole, The Branch Of The Tree, Is Life Itself, And It Is A Frightful Thing To See A Living Being Lose His Hold Upon It, And Fall Like A Ripe Fruit.

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.

To Live A Life Which Is A Perpetual Falsehood Is To Suffer Unknown Tortures.

Each Man Should Frame Life So That At Some Future Hour Fact And His Dreaming Meet.

What Was More Needed By This Old Man Who Divided The Leisure Hours Of His Life, Where He Had So Little Leisure, Between Gardening In The Daytime, And Contemplation At Night? Was Not This Narrow Enclosure, With The Sky For A Background, Enough To Enable Him To Adore God In His Most Beautiful As Well As In His Most Sublime Works? Indeed, Is Not That All, And What More Can Be Desired? A Little Garden To Walk, And Immensity To Reflect Upon. At His Feet Something To Cultivate And Gather; Above His Head Something To Study And Meditate Upon: A Few Flowers On The Earth, And All The Stars In The Sky.

Not Seeing People Allows You To Think Of Them As Perfect In All Kinds Of Ways.

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

The Most Terrible Of Motives And The Most Unanswerable Of Responses: Because.

Dear God! How Beauty Varies In Nature And Art. In A Woman The Flesh Must Be Like Marble; In A Statue The Marble Must Be Like Flesh.

I Advance In Life, I Grow More Simple, And I Become More And More Patriotic For Humanity.

In This World, Which Is So Plainly The Antechamber Of Another, There Are No Happy Men. The True Division Of Humanity Is Between Those Who Live In Light And Those Who Live In Darkness. Our Aim Must Be To Diminish The Number Of The Latter And Increase The Number Of The Former. That Is Why We Demand Education And Knowledge.

People Generally Will Soon Understand That Writers Should Be Judged, Not According To Rules And Species, Which Are Contrary To Nature And Art, But According To The Immutable Principles Of The Art Of Composition, And The Special Laws Of Their Individual Temperaments.

Despots Play Their Part In The Works Of Thinkers. Fettered Words Are Terrible Words. The Writer Doubles And Trebles The Power Of His Writing When A Ruler Imposes Silence On The People. Something Emerges From That Enforced Silence, A Mysterious Fullness Which Filters Through And Becomes Steely In The Thought.

Hope Is A Delusion; No Hand Can Grasp A Wave Or A Shadow.

There Is In Every Village A Torch - The Teacher; And An Extinguisher - The Priest.

She Might Have Melted A Heart Of Stone, But Nothing Can Melt A Heart Of Wood.

Being Good Is Easy, What Is Difficult Is Being Just.

It Is The Essence Of Truth That It Is Never Excessive. Why Should It Exaggerate? There Is That Which Should Be Destroyed And That Which Should Be Simply Illuminated And Studied. How Great Is The Force Of Benevolent And Searching Examination! We Must Not Resort To The Flame Where Only Light Is Required.

Exaggeration Is

To Rescue From Oblivion Even A Fragment Of A Language Which Men Have Used And Which Is In Danger Of Being Lost -that Is To Say, One Of The Elements, Whether Good Or Bad, Which Have Shaped And Complicated Civilization -is To Extend The Scope Of Social Observation And To Serve Civilization.

But Secondly You Say 'society Must Exact Vengeance, And Society Must Punish'. Wrong On Both Counts. Vengeance Comes From The Individual And Punishment From God.

He Had, They Said, Tasted In Succession All The Apples Of The Tree Of Knowledge, And, Whether From Hunger Or Disgust, Had Ended By Tasting The Forbidden Fruit.

Equality Does Not Mean That All Plants Must Grow To The Same Height - A Society Of Tall Grass And Dwarf Trees, A Jostle Of Conflicting Jealousies. It Means, In Civic Terms, An Equal Outlet For All Talents; In Political Terms, That All Votes Will Carry The Same Weight; And In Religious Terms That All Beliefs Will Enjoy Equal Rights.

Nothing Is More Dangerous Than To Stop Working. It Is A Habit That Can Soon Be Lost, One That Is Easily Neglected And Hard To Resume. A Measure Of Day-dreaming Is A Good Thing, Like A Drug Prudently Used ... But Too Much Submerges And Drowns. Woe To The Intellectual Worker Who Allows Himself To Lapse Wholly From Positive Thinking Into Day-dreaming. He Thinks He Can Easily Change Back, And Tells Himself That It Is All One. He Is Wrong! To Substitute Day-dreaming For Thought Is To Confuse Poison With A Source Of Nourishment.

Positive Thinking

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

It Is Those Books Which A Man Possesses But Does Not Read Which Constitute The Most Suspicious Evidence Against Him.

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

Every Bad Institution Of This World Ends By Suicide.

Revery, Which Is Thought In Its Nebulous State, Borders Closely Upon The Land Of Sleep, By Which It Is Bounded As By A Natural Frontier.

The Memory Of An Absent Person Shines In The Deepest Recesses Of The Heart, Shining The More Brightly The More Wholly Its Object Has Vanished: A Light On The Horizon Of The Despairing, Darkened Spirit; A Star Gleaming In Our Inward Night.

Love Is Like A Tree, It Grows Of Its Own Accord, It Puts Down Deep Roots Into Our Whole Being.

Homer Is One Of The Men Of Genius Who Solve That Fine Problem Of Art - The Finest Of All, Perhaps - Truly To Depict Humanity By The Enlargement Of Man: That Is, To Generate The Real In The Ideal.

Yes, Instruction! Light! Light! Everything Comes From Light, And To Everything It Returns.

The Smaller It Is The Heart, More Hatred Houses.

Thus, During Those Nineteen Years Of Torture And Slavery, Did This Soul Rise And Fall At The Same Time. Light Entered On The One Side, And Darkness On The Other.

I'm Not In The World To Guard My Own Life, But To Guard Souls

Go To Sleep In Peace. God Is Awake.

One Cannot Resist An Idea Whose Time Has Come.

Civil War.... What Did The Words Mean? Was There Any Such Thing As "foreign War"? Was Not All Warfare Between Men Warfare Between Brothers?

There Shall Be No Slavery Of The Mind.

God Whose Gifts In Gracious Flood Unto All Who Seek Are Sent, Only Asks You To Be Good And Is Content.

Love Is Reducing The Universe To One Being.

Upon The First Goblet He Read This Inscription, Monkey Wine; Upon The Second, Lion Wine; Upon The Third, Sheep Wine; Upon The Fourth, Swine Wine. These Four Inscriptions Expressed The Four Descending Degrees Of Drunkenness: The First, That Which Enlivens; The Second, That Which Irritates; The Third, That Which Stupefies; Finally The Last, That Which Brutalizes.

I Don't Mind What Congress Does, As Long As They Don't Do It In The Streets And Frighten The Horses.

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

In 1815, M. Charles Francois-bienvenu Myriel Was Bishop Of D-----. He Was A Man Of Seventy-five, And Had Occupied The Bishopric Of D----- Since 1806. Although It In No Manner Concerns, Even In The Remotest Degree, What We Have To Relate, It May Not Be Useless, Were It Only For The Sake Of Exactness In All Things, To Notice Here The Reports And Gossip Which Had Arisen On His Account From The Time Of His Arrival In The Diocese.

The Sunshine Was Delightful, The Foliage Gently Astir, More From The Activity Of Birds Than From The Breeze. One Gallant Little Bird, Doubtless Lovelorn, Was Singing His Heart Out At The Top Of A Tall Tree.

To Destroy Abuses Is Not Enough; Habits Must Also Be Changed. The Windmill Has Gone, But The Wind Is Still There." ~old Man G--- To Monseigneur Bienvenu Myriel

You Look At A Star For Two Reasons, Because It Is Luminous, And Because It Is Impenetrable. You Have Beside You A Sweeter Radiance And A Greater Mystery, Woman.

To Be Wicked Does Not Insure Prosperity - For The Inn Did Not Succeed Well.

Nothing Is More Imminent Than The Impossible . . . What We Must Always Foresee Is The Unforeseen.

Justice Has Its Anger, My Lord Bishop, And The Wrath Of Justice Is An Element Of Progress. Whatever Else May Be Said Of It, The French Revolution Was The Greatest Step Forward By Mankind Since The Coming Of Christ. It Was Unfinished, I Agree, But Still It Was Sublime. It Released The Untapped Springs Of Society; It Softened Hearts, Appeased, Tranquilized, Enlightened, And Set Flowing Through The World The Tides Of Civilization. It Was Good. The French Revolution Was The Anointing Of Humanity.

Whatever Causes Night In Our Souls May Leave Stars. Cimourdain Was Full Of Virtues And Truth, But They Shine Out Of A Dark Background.

That Men Saw His Mask, But The Bishop Saw His Face. That Men Saw His Life, But The Bishop Saw His Conscience.

Every Idea Must Have A Visible Enfolding.

The Author Creates A Book And The People Accept Or Not Accept It. The Creator Of A Book Is An Author And The Creator Of It`s Fate Are People.

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.

When We Are At The End Of Life, To Die Means To Go Away; When We Are At The Beginning, To Go Away Means To Die.

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

Not Seeing People Permits Us To Imagine Them With Every Perfection.

Such Is The Remorseless Progression Of Human Society, Shedding Lives And Souls As It Goes On Its Way. It Is An Ocean Into Which Men Sink Who Have Been Cast Out By The Law And Consigned, With Help Most Cruelly Withheld, To Moral Death. The Sea Is The Pitiless Social Darkness Into Which The Penal System Casts Those It Has Condemned, An Unfathomable Waste Of Misery. The Human Soul, Lost In Those Depths, May Become A Corpse. Who Shall Revive It?

But When Ill Indeed, Even Dismissing The Doctor Don't Always Succeed.

Liberation Is Not Deliverance.

Jean Prouvaire Was Timid Only In Repose. Once Excited, He Burst Forth, A Sort Of Mirth Accentuated His Enthusiasm, And He Was At Once Both Laughing And Lyric.

Ecclesiastes Names Thee Almighty, The Maccabees Name Thee Creator, The Epistle To The Ephesians Names Thee Liberty, Baruch Names Thee Immensity, The Psalms Name Thee Wisdom And Truth, John Names Thee Light, The Book Of Kings Names Thee Lord, Exodus Names Thee Providence, Leviticus Sanctity, Esdras Justice, Creation Names Thee God, Man Names Thee Father; But Solomon Names Thee Compassion, Which Is The Most Beautiful Of All Thy Names.

He Is The Best Gentleman That Is The Son Of His Own Deserts, And Not The Degenerated Heir Of Another's Virtue.

When A Person Opens A Book, He Can Never Be In Prison.

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

Son, Brother, Father, Lover, Friend. There Is Room In The Heart For All The Affections, As There Is Room In Heaven For All The Stars.

Whenever We Encounter The Infinite In Man, However Imperfectly Understood, We Treat It With Respect. Whether In The Synagogue, The Mosque, The Pagoda, Or The Wigwam, There Is A Hideous Aspect Which We Execrate And A Sublime Aspect Which We Venerate. So Great A Subject For Spiritual Contemplation, Such Measureless Dreaming - The Echo Of God On The Human Wall!

He Reached For His Pocket, And Found There, Only Reality

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

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.

A Shadow Is Hard To Seize By The Throat And Dash To The Ground.

Marius Was Of The Temperament That Sinks Into Grief And Remains There; Cosette Was Of The Sort That Plunges In And Comes Out Again.

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.

Gutenberg's Invention Of Printing Is The Greatest Event-the Mother Of Revolution

We Would Be Ashamed Of Our Best Behavior If The People Knew The Motives Of Our Behaving So.

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?

Progress Is The Stride Of God.

The Beautiful Is As Useful As The Useful." He Added After A Moment’s Silence, "perhaps More So.

Dear God! How Beauty Varies In Nature And Art.

Love Is A Portion Of The Soul Itself, And It Is Of The Same Nature As The Celestial Breathing Of The Atmosphere Of Paradise.

Yes, The Brutalities Of Progress Are Called Revolutions

...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.

Mankind Is Not A Circle With A Single Center But An Ellipse With Two Focal Points Of Which Facts Are One And Ideas The Other.

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

You Who Suffer Because You Love, Love Still More. To Die Of Love, Is To Live By It.

Be Happy Without Picking Flaws.

Nobody Loves The Light Like The Blind Man.

A Woman's Best Qualities Are Harmful If Undiluted With Prudence.

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

To Sum Up All, Let It Be Known That Science And Religion Are Two Identical Words. The Learned Do Not Suspect This, No More Do The Religious. These Two Words Express The Two Sides Of The Same Fact, Which Is The Infinite. Religion-science, This Is The Future Of The Human Mind.

The Wicked Envy And Hate; It Is Their Way Of Admiring.

I Repeat, Whether We Be Italians Or Frenchmen, Misery Concerns Us All.

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.

The Greatest Blunders, Like The Thickest Ropes, Are Often Compounded Of A Multitude Of Strands. Take The Rope Apart, Separate It Into The Small Threads That Compose It, And You Can Break Them One By One. You Think, That Is All There Was! But Twist Them All Together And You Have Something Tremendous.

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

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.

I Write With One Hand, But I Fight With Both.

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