Background Image
...
Hell Is An Outrage On Humanity. When You Tell Me That Your Deity Made You In His Image, I Reply That He Must Have Been Very Ugly.
-Victor Hugo
...
Please Wait....
Translating....

Hell Is An Outrage

Victor Hugo
...
Hell Is An Outrage On Humanity. When You Tell Me That Your Deity Made You In His Image, I Reply That He Must Have Been Very Ugly.

Understanding the Quote: "hell is an outrage on humanity. when you tell me that your..."

This quote by Victor Hugo reflects deeply on the theme of beauty. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Beauty, Humanity, Religion, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Victor Hugo interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo is celebrated for insightful thoughts on beauty and humanity. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

Views: 6
Topic
Beauty
Humanity
Religion
More From Victor Hugo
A Thousand Men Enslaved Fear One Beast Free.
Fear
Men
Beast
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.
Love Is
Accomplishment
Pearls
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.
Sacrifice
Generations
Earth
In Joined Hands There Is Still Some Token Of Hope, In The Clenched Fist None.
Hands
Fists
Peace And Love
In The Animal World No Creature Born To Be A Dove Turns Into A Scavenger. This Happens Only Among Men.
Animal
Men
World
To Lie A Little Is Not Possible: He Who Lies, Lies The Whole Lie.
Lying
Deceit
Littles
I Refuse The Oration Of All Churches. I Ask A Prayer Of All Souls. I Believe In God.
God
Prayer
Believe
Dying Is Nothing. What's Terrible Is Not To Live.
Dying
Terrible
One Only Needs To See A Smile In A White Crape Bonnet In Order To Enter The Palace Of Dreams.
Dream
White
Order
Ah! There You Are! He Exclaimed, Looking At Jean Valjean. I'm So Glad To See You. Well, But How Is This? I Gave You The Candlesticks Too, Which Are Of Silver Like The Rest, And For Which You Can Certainly Get Two Hundred Francs. Why Did You Not Carry Them Away With Your Forks And Spoons?
Two
Spoons
Miserable
God Was Bored By Him.
Sarcastic
Bored
The Tomb Is Not A Blind Alley: It Is A Thoroughfare. It Closes On The Twilight. It Opens On The Dawn.
Twilight
Dawn
Blind
We Need Those Who Pray Constantly To Compensate For Those Who Do Not Pray At All.
Needs
Praying
Wisdom And Eloquence Are Not Always United.
Wisdom
United
Eloquence
From A Political Point Of View, There Is But One Principle, The Sovereignty Of Man Over Himself. This Sovereignty Of Myself Over Myself Is Called Liberty
Wisdom
Men
Views
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.
Stars
Two
Looks
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.
Lying
Fighting
Revolutionary Leaders
Philosophy Should Be An Energy; It Should Find Its Aim And Its Effect In The Amelioration Of Mankind.
Philosophy
Energy
Should
He Who Is Not Capable Of Enduring Poverty Is Not Capable Of Being Free.
Wisdom
Being Free
Poverty
Common Sense Is In Spite Of, Not As The Result Of Education.
Education
School
Common Sense
To Commit The Least Possible Sin Is The Law For Man. To Live Without Sin Is The Dream Of An Angel. Everything Terrestrial Is Subject To Sin. Sin Is A Gravitation.
Dream
Angel
Men
Death Belongs To God Alone; By What Right Do Men Touch That Unknown Thing?
Death
Men
Unknown Things
It Is By Suffering That Human Beings Become Angels.
Angel
Suffering
Awareness
Crime Is Redeemed By Remorse, But Not By A Blow Of The Axe Or Slipknot. Blood Has To Be Washed By Tears But Not By Blood.
Blow
Blood
Tears
The Eye Of A Man Should Be Still More Reverent Before The Rising Of A Young Maiden Than Before The Rising Of A Star. The Possibility Of Touch Should Increase Respect. The Down Of The Peach, The Dust Of The Plum, The Radiated Crystal Of Snow, The Butterfly’s Wing Powdered With Feathers, Are Gross Things Beside That Chastity That Does Not Even Know It Is Chaste. The Young Maiden Is Only The Glimmer Of A Dream And Is Not Yet Statue. Her Alcove Is Hidden In The Shadows Of The Ideal. The Indiscreet Touch Of The Eye Desecrates This Dim Penumbra. Here, To Gaze, Is To Profane.
Dream
Stars
Butterfly
To Know, To Think, To Dream. That Is Everything.
Dream
Thinking
Knows
What Love Commences Can Be Finished By God Alone.
Finished
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?
Ocean
Men
Sea
Freedom In Art, Freedom In Society, This Is The Double Goal Towards Which All Consistent And Logical Minds Must Strive.
Art
Goal
Mind
The Fact Is That The Beautiful, Humanly Speaking, Is Merely Form Considered In Its Simplest Aspect, In Its Most Perfect Symmetry, In Its Most Entire Harmony With Our Make-up. Thus The Ensemble That It Offers Us Is Always Complete, But Restricted Like Ourselves. What We Call The Ugly, On The Contrary, Is A Detail Of A Great Whole Which Eludes Us, And Which Is In Harmony, Not With Man But With All Creation. That Is Why It Constantly Presents Itself To Us In New But Incomplete Aspects.
Beautiful
Makeup
Men
And Then, Strange To Say, The First Symptom Of True Love In A Young Man Is Timidity; In A Girl, It Is Boldness.
Love
Girl
Men
One Cannot Resist An Idea Whose Time Has Come.
Ideas
A Faith Is A Necessity To A Man. Woe To Him Who Believes In Nothing.
Faith
Wisdom
Believe
We Are On The Side Of Religion As Opposed To Religions, And We Are Among Those Who Believe In The Wretched Inadequacy Of Sermons And The Sublimity Of Prayer.
Prayer
Believe
Religion
There Must Be People Who Pray Even For Those Who Never Pray.
People
Praying
The Word Gothic, In The Sense In Which It Is Generally Employed, Is Wholly Unsuitable, But Wholly Consecrated. Hence We Accept It And We Adopt It, Like All The Rest Of The World, To Characterize The Architecture Of The Second Half Of The Middle Ages, Where The Ogive Is The Principle Which Succeeds The Architecture Of The First Period, Of Which The Semi-circle Is The Father.
Father
Circles
Age
For There Are Many Great Deeds Done In The Small Struggles Of Life.
Struggle
Deeds Done
Done
One Sees Qualities At A Distance And Defects At Close Range.
Distance
Quality
Range
Philosophy Is The Microscope Of Thought. Everything Desires To Flee From It, But Nothing Escapes It.
Philosophy
Desire
Microscopes
In My Old Age There Is A Coming Into Flower. My Body Wanes; My Mind Waxes.
Flower
Mind
Age
I Was Always A Lover Of Soft-winged Things.
Lovers
For, To Make Deserts, God, Who Rules Mankind, Begins With Kings, And Ends The Work By Wind.
Kings
Wind
Desert
One Can Resist The Invasion Of An Army But One Cannot Resist The Invasion Of Ideas.
Inspiration
Learning
Knowledge
Marius Was Of The Temperament That Sinks Into Grief And Remains There; Cosette Was Of The Sort That Plunges In And Comes Out Again.
Grief
Plunge
Cosette
When I Speak To You About Myself, I Am Speaking To You About Yourself. How Is It You Don't See That?
Truth
Honesty
Speak
Was It Possible That Napoleon Should Win The Battle Of Waterloo? We Answer, No! Why? Because Of Wellington? Because Of Blucher? No! Because Of God! For Bonaparte To Conquer At Waterloo Was Not The Law Of The Nineteenth Century. It Was Time That This Vast Man Should Fall. He Had Been Impeached Before The Infinite! He Had Vexed God! Waterloo Was Not A Battle. It Was The Change Of Front Of The Universe!
God
Fall
Winning
The True Artist Can Only Labor Con Amore.
Art
Artist
Labor
Everything Bows To Success, Even Grammar.
Fortune Cookie
Bows
Grammar
Right Is Right Only When Entire.
He Who Contemplates The Depths Of Paris Is Seized With Vertigo. Nothing Is More Fantastic. Nothing Is More Tragic. Nothing Is More Sublime.
Paris
Sublime
Depth
Friend Is Sometimes A Word Devoid Of Meaning; Enemy, Never.
Friends
Enemy
Sometimes
The Man Is Placed Where The Earth Ends, The Woman, Where The Heaven Starts.
Men
Heaven
Earth
Solitude Either Develops The Mental Power, Or Renders Men Dull And Vicious.
Men
Solitude
Dull
If We Must Suffer, Let Us Suffer Nobly.
Suffering
Ifs
...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.
Block
Destiny
Black
The Ode Lives Upon The Ideal, The Epic Upon The Grandiose, The Drama Upon The Real.
Wisdom
Real
Drama
Conscience Is God Present In Man.
Wisdom
Men
Conscience
Take All Reasonable Advantage Of That Which The Present May Offer You. It Is The Only Time Which Is Ours. Yesterday Is Buried Forever, And To-morrow We May Never See.
Yesterday
Forever
May
Our Acts Make Or Mar Us, We Are The Children Of Our Own Deeds.
Letting Go
Wisdom
Children
I Will Be Chateaubriand Or Nothing.
Not Seeing People Allows You To Think Of Them As Perfect In All Kinds Of Ways.
Thinking
People
Perfect
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!
Art
Soul
Graves
He Saw Before Him Two Roads, Both Equally Straight ; But He Saw Two; And That Terrified Him — Him, Who Had Never In His Life Known But One Straight Line. And, Bitter Anguish, These Two Roads Were Contradictory.
Two
Lines
Saws
If You Want To Civilize A Man, Begin With His Grandmother.
Grandmother
Men
Want
Every Man Is A Book In Which God Himself Writes.
Book
Writing
Men
Ma Vie Est Une énigme Dont Ton Nom Est Le Mot. (my Life Is An Enigma, Of Which Your Name Is The Word.)
Names
Life Is
Enigma
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.
Mistake
Eye
Direct Action
Desiring Always To Be In Mourning, He Clothed Himself With Night.
Night
Mourning
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?
Flower
Sailing
Bud
Religion, Society, And Nature--these Are The Three Struggles Of Man.
Struggle
Men
Humanity
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.
Tears
Boiling Over
Accepting
Sometimes He Used A Spade In His Garden, And Sometimes He Read And Wrote. He Had But One Name For These Two Kinds Of Labor; He Called Them Gardening. ‘the Spirit Is A Garden,’ Said He
Garden
Names
Two
What A Gloomy Thing, Not To Know The Address Of One's Soul.
Soul
Addresses
Gloomy
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.
Writing
Play
Tyrants
Winter Is On My Head, But Eternal Spring Is In My Heart.
Nature
Spring
Heart
The Saints Were His Friends, And Blessed Him; The Monsters Were His Friends, And Guarded Him.
Blessed
Monsters
Saint
God Created The Flirt As Soon As He Made The Fool.
God
Flirty
Flirting
The Women Laughed And Wept; The Crowd Stamped Their Feet Enthusiastically, For At That Moment Quasimodo Was Really Beautiful. He Was Handsome — This Orphan, This Foundling, This Outcast.
Beautiful
Feet
Crowds
Be As A Bird Perched On A Frail Branch That She Feels Bending Beneath Her, Still She Sings Away All The Same, Knowing She Has Wings.
Animal
Birds Wings
Knowing
Press On! A Better Fate Awaits Thee.
Perseverance
Fate
Goal
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.
Mother
Children
Eye
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.
Eye
Men
Sea
The Thirst For The Infinite Proves Infinity.
Infinity
Infinite
Thirst
With A Tiny Bit Of Effort, The Nettle Would Be Useful; If You Neglect It, It Becomes A Pest. So Then We Kill It. How Many Men Are Like Nettles My Friends, There Is No Such Thing As A Weed And No Such Thing As A Bad Man. There Are Only Bad Cultivators.
Weed
Men
Effort
Nature Has Made A Pebble And A Female. The Lapidary Makes The Diamond, And The Lover Makes The Woman.
Female
Pebbles
Lovers
The Poor Man Shuddered, Overflowed With An Angelic Joy; He Declared In His Transport That This Would Last Through Life; He Said To Himself That He Really Had Not Suffered Enough To Deserve Such Radiant Happiness, And He Thanked God, In The Depths Of His Soul, For Having Permitted That He, A Miserable Man, Should Be So Loved By This Innocent Being.
Gratitude
Men
Joy
Hypocrisy Is Nothing, In Fact, But A Horrible Hopefulness.
Hypocrisy
Facts
Horrible
Strong And Rare Natures Are Thus Created; Misery, Almost Always A Stepmother, Is Sometimes A Mother; Privation Gives Birth To Power Of Soul And Mind; Distress Is The Nurse Of Self-respect; Misfortune Is A Good Breast For Great Souls.
Mother
Strong
Self
There Are People Who Observe The Rules Of Honor As One Observes The Stars, From A Great Distance.
Stars
Distance
People
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." Nihilism Has No Substance. There Is No Such Thing As Nothingness, And Zero Does Not Exist. Everything Is Something. Nothing Is Nothing. Man Lives More By Affirmation Than By Bread.
Zero
Philosophy
Men
...mothers Are Often Fondest Of The Child Which Has Caused Them The Greatest Pain.
Mother
Pain
Children
The Soul Has Greater Need Of The Ideal Than Of The Real
Real
Soul
Needs
Progress Is The Life-style Of Man.
Men
Style
Progress
Promise To Give Me A Kiss On My Brow When I Am Dead.--i Shall Feel It.
Goodbye
Kissing
Giving
Not Being Heard Is No Reason For Silence.
Inspiring
Silence
Les Mis
God Has Made The Cat To Give Man The Pleasure Of Caressing The Tiger.
Cat
Men
Giving
Melancholy Is The Pleasure Of Being Sad.
Sad
Being Sad
Melancholy
Mirrors, Those Revealers Of The Truth, Are Hated; That Does Not Prevent Them From Being Of Use.
Mirrors
Doe
Use
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.
Beauty
Art
Flesh
To Think Is Of Itself To Be Useful; It Is Always And In All Cases A Striving Toward God.
Thinking
Strive
Cases
If God Had Intended That Man Should Go Backward, He Would Have Given Him Eyes In The Back Of His Head.
Eye
Men
Should
A Bird Sings, A Child Prattles, But It Is The Same Hymn; Hymn Indistinct, Inarticulate, But Full Of Profound Meaning.
Children
Hymns
Profound
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.
Stars
Memories
Heart
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.
Christmas
Night
Air
Nothing Can Be Sadder Or More Profound Than To See A Thousand Things For The First And Last Time. To Journey Is To Be Born And Die Each Minute...all The Elements Of Life Are In Constant Flight From Us, With Darkness And Clarity Intermingled, The Vision And The Eclipse; We Look And Hasten, Reaching Out Our Hands To Clutch; Every Happening Is A Bend In The Road...and Suddenly We Have Grown Old. We Have A Sense Of Shock And Gathering Darkness; Ahead Is A Black Doorway; The Life That Bore Us Is A Flagging Horse, And A Veiled Stranger Is Waiting In The Shadows To Unharness Us.
Horse
Journey
Hands
If It Were (is It Not) Outrageous That Society Should Treat With Such Rigid Precision Those Of Its Members Who Were Most Poorly Endowed In The Distribution Or Wealth That Chance Had Made, And Who Were, Therefore, Most Worthy Of Indulgence.
Poverty
Chance
Wealth
These Two Beings, Who Had Loved Each Other So Exclusively, And With So Touching A Love, And Who Had Lived So Long For Each Other, Were Now Suffering Beside One Another And Through One Another; Without Speaking Of It, Without Harsh Feeling, And Smiling All The While.
Two
Long
Touching
Popularity - A Piece Of Faded Tinsel, That Is Out Of Date.
Pieces
Popularity
Faded
Phenomena Intersect; To See But One Is To See Nothing.
Her Soul Trembled On Her Lips Like A Drop Of Dew On A Flower.
Flower
Soul
Dew
This Conflict Between Right And Fact Has Endured Since The Origins Of Society. To Bring The Duel To An End, To Consolidate The Pure Ideal With The Human Reality, To Make The Right Peacefully Interpenetrate The Fact, And The Fact The Right, This Is The Work Of The Wise.
Wise
Reality
Facts
The Soul Helps The Body, And At Certain Moments Raises It. It Is The Only Bird That Sustains Its Cage.
Bird
Soul
Cages
Stupidity Talks, Vanity Acts.
Vanity
Stupidity
The Hatred Of Luxury Is Not An Intelligent Hatred. It Implies A Hatred Of Arts.
Art
Intelligent
Luxury
The Guilty One Is Not He Who Commits The Sin, But He Who Causes The Darkness.
Darkness
Guilt
Les Mis
No One Knows Like A Woman How To Say Things Which Are At Once Gentle And Deep.
Wisdom
Gentle
Knows
A Man Without A Woman Is Like A Pistol Without A Trigger; It Is The Woman Who Makes The Man Go Off.
Men
Pistols
Triggers
God Made The Water But Men Made The Wine.
Wine
Men
Water
We Are Given Up To Those Gods, Those Monsters, Those Giants, — Our Thoughts.
Wisdom
Hands
Monsters
The Flesh Is The Upper Surface Of The Unknown.
Flesh
Surface
There Is Always More Misery Among The Lower Classes Than There Is Humanity In The Higher.
Class
Humanity
Les Mis
Nothing Is More Imminent Than The Impossible . . . What We Must Always Foresee Is The Unforeseen.
Vision
Impossible
Unforeseen
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?
Strong
Kindness
Believe
Society Is A Republic. When An Individual Tries To Lift Themselves Above Others, They Are Dragged Down By The Mass, Either By Ridicule Or Slander.
Society
Trying
Republic
Dirt Has Been Shrewdly Termed "misplaced Material.
Dirt
Materials
Misplaced
For The Rest, He Was The Same To All Men, The Fashionable World And The Ordinary People. He Judged Nothing In Haste, Or Without Taking Account Of The Cirumstances. He Said, 'let Me See How The Fault Arose.
Men
People
Ordinary
Kings Are For Nations In Their Swaddling-clothes: France Has Attained Her Majority.
Kings
Clothes
Majority
I Advance In Life, I Grow More Simple, And I Become More And More Patriotic For Humanity.
Patriotic
Simple
Humanity
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.
Sight
Two
Suffering
Slaves Would Be Tyrants Were The Chance Theirs.
Work
Tyrants
Would Be
Style Is The Substance Of The Subject Called Unceasingly To The Surface.
Style
Substance
Surface
Try As You Will, You Cannot Annihilate That Eternal Relic Of The Human Heart, Love.
Love You
Heart
Trying
Laughter Is The Sun That Drives Winter From The Human Face.
Inspirational
Funny
Life
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.
Laughing
Enthusiasm
Mirth
A Day Will Come When There Will Be No Battlefields, But Markets Opening To Commerce And Minds Opening To Ideas.
Wisdom
Ideas
Mind
There Are, As We Know, Powerful And Illustrious Atheists. At Bottom, Led Back To The Truth By Their Very Force, They Are Not Absolutely Sure That They Are Atheists; It Is With Them Only A Question Of Definition, And In Any Case, If They Do Not Believe In God, Being Great Minds, They Prove God.
Atheist
Powerful
Believe
I Was Dying When You Came.
Dying
I'd Like A Drink. I Desire To Forget Life. Life Is A Hideous Invention By Somebody I Don't Know. It Doesn't Last, And It's Good For Nothing. You Break Your Neck Simply Living.
Desire
Lasts
Necks
It Is God Who Makes Woman Beautiful, It Is The Devil Who Makes Her Pretty.
Beautiful
Women
Pretty Woman
Philosophy Is The Microscope Of Thought.
Philosophy
Microscopes
The World Of Sleep Has An Existence Of Its Own.
Sleep
World
Existence
A Fixed Idea Ends In Madness Or Heroism.
Ideas
Heroism
Madness
Sacrificing The Earth For Paradise Is Giving Up The Substance For The Shadow.
Giving Up
Sacrifice
Shadow
Woman, Nude, Is The Blue Sky. Clouds And Garments Are An Obstacle To Contemplation. Beauty And Infinity Would Be Gazed Upon Unveiled.
Beauty
Women
Clouds
Who Can Be Sure That Jean Valjean Had Not Been On The Verge Of Losing Heart And Giving Up The Struggle? In Loving He Recovered His Strength. But The Truth Is That He Was No Less Vulnerable Than Cosette. He Protected Her And She Sustained Him. Thanks To Him She Could Go Forward Into Life, And Thanks To Her He Could Continue Virtous. He Was The Child's Support And She His Mainstay. Sublime, Unfathomable Marvel Of The Balance Of Destiny!
Children
Giving Up
Struggle
A Man Trying To Escape Never Thinks Himself Sufficiently Concealed.
Men
Thinking
Trying
The Ideal And The Beautiful Are Identical; The Ideal Corresponds To The Idea, And Beauty To Form; Hence Idea And Substance Are Cognate.
Beautiful
Ideas
Substance
Diamonds Are To Be Found Only In The Darkness Of The Earth, And Truth In The Darkness Of The Mind.
Darkness
Mind
Earth
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.
Men
Light
Numbers
The Poetic Element Lying Hidden In Most Women Is The Source Of Their Magnetic Attraction.
Lying
Elements
Poetic
If A Writer Wrote Merely For His Time, I Would Have To Break My Pen And Throw It Away.
Break
Pens
Ifs
The Reduction Of The Universe To The Compass Of A Single Being, And The Extension Of A Single Being Until It Reaches God - That Is Love. Love Is The Salute Of The Angels To The Stars. How Sad Is The Heart When Rendered Sad By Love! How Great Is The Void Created By The Absence Of The Being Who Alone Fills The World.
Stars
Heart
Angel
For Dogs We Kings Should Have Lions, And For Cats, Tigers. The Great Benefits A Crown.
Dog
Kings
Cat
Every Body Drags Its Shadow, And Every Mind Its Doubt.
Mind
Doubt
Shadow
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.
Heart
Love Is
Roots
Forty Is The Old Age Of Youth; Fifty The Youth Of Old Age.
Birthday
Health
Medicine
Diamonds Are Found Only In The Dark Bowels Of The Earth; Truths Are Found Only In The Depths Of Thought. It Seemed To Him That After Descending Into Those Depths After Long Groping In The Blackest Of This Darkness, He Had At Last Found One Of These Diamonds, One Of These Truths, And That He Held It In His Hand; And It Blinded Him To Look At It. (pg. 231)
Dark
Hands
Long
What Is The Cat?" He Exclaimed. "it Is A Corrective. God, Having Made The Mouse, Said, 'i've Made A Blunder.' And He Made The Cat. The Cat Is The Erratum Of The Mouse. The Mouse, Plus The Cat, Is The Revised And Corrected Proof Of Creation.
Cat
Creation
Proof
A Creditor Is Worse Than A Slave-owner; For The Master Owns Only Your Person, But A Creditor Owns Your Dignity, And Can Command It.
Slave Owners
Debtors
Dignity
Nothing Is More Dangerous Than Discontinued Labor; It Is Habit Lost. A Habit Easy To Abandon, Difficult To Resume.
Wisdom
Les Mis
Habit
He Left Her. She Was Dissatisfied With Him. He Had Preferred To Incur Her Anger Rather Than Cause Her Pain. He Had Kept All The Pain For Himself.
Pain
Causes
Left
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.
Mistake
Thinking
Together
No Man Is More Unhappy Than The One Who Is Never In Adversity; The Greatest Affliction Of Life Is Never To Be Afflicted.
Adversity
Men
Unhappy
He Had Slipped, Climbed, Rolled, Searched, Walked, Persevered, That Is All. Such Is The Secret Of All Triumphs.
Wisdom
Secret
Triumph
The Earth Is A Great Piece Of Stupidity.
Stupid
Stupidity
Pieces
Emotion Is Always New And The Word Has Always Served; Therein Lies The Difficulty Of Expressing Emotion.
Lying
Emotional
Feelings
The Wise Man Is He Who Knows When And How To Stop
Wise
Men
Knows
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.
Faith
Confidence
Health
Logic Ignores The Almost, Just As The Sun Ignores The Candle.
Sun
Logic
Candle
To Meditate Is To Labour; To Think Is To Act.
Wisdom
Thinking
Labour
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.
Night
Light
Climbing
My Tastes Are Aristocratic, My Actions Democratic.
Taste
Action
Democratic
As With Stomachs, We Should Pity Minds That Do Not Eat.
Mind
Pity
Should
Nature, Like A Kind And Smiling Mother, Lends Herself To Our Dreams And Cherishes Our Fancies.
Mother
Dream
Nature
The Owl Goes Not Into The Nest Of The Lark.
Owl
Larks
Nests
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
Men
Wind
Abuse
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.
Hands
Order
Two
A Sewer Is A Cynic. It Tells All.
Cynic
Sewers
The Future Has Many Names: For The Weak, It Means The Unattainable. For The Fearful, It Means The Unknown. For The Courageous, It Means Opportunity.
Mean
Opportunity
Names
To Err Is Human. To Loaf Is Parisian.
Paris
Humans
Err Is Human
My Revenge Is Fraternity! No More Frontiers! The Rhine For Everyone! Let Us Be The Same Republic, Let Us Be The United States Of Europe, Let Us Be The Continental Federation, Let Us Be European Liberty, Let Us Be Universal Peace!
Country
Revenge
Europe
Music Expresses That Which Cannot Be Said And On Which It Is Impossible To Be Silent.
Music
Wisdom
Art
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.
Art
Real
Men
Without Vanity, Without Coquetry, Without Curiosity, In A Word, Without The Fall, Woman Would Not Be Woman. Much Of Her Grace Is In Her Frailty.
Wisdom
Fall
Vanity
All Animals Are To Be Found In Men And Each Of Theme Exists In Some Man, Sometimes Several At The Time.
Animal
Men
Sometimes
For Prying Into Any Human Affairs, Non Are Equal To Those Whom It Does Not Concern.
Gossip
Doe
Affair
There Is A Spectacle More Grand Than The Sea; It Is Heaven; There Is A Spectacle More Grand Than Heaven; It Is The Conscience.
Character
Sea
Heaven
Superstition, Bigotry And Prejudice, Ghosts Though They Are, Cling Tenaciously To Life; They Are Shades Armed With Tooth And Claw. They Must Be Grappled With Unceasingly, For It Is A Fateful Part Of Human Destiny That It Is Condemned To Wage Perpetual War Against Ghosts. A Shade Is Not Easily Taken By The Throat And Destroyed.
War
Taken
Destiny
There Is No Rapture In The Love Which Is Prompted By Esteem; Such Affection Is Lasting, Not Passionate.
Passionate
Affection
Rapture
The Animal Is Ignorant Of The Fact That He Knows. The Man Is Aware Of The Fact That He Is Ignorant.
Wisdom
Animal
Men
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.
Fall
Light
Years
Whenever A Man's Friends Begin To Compliment Him About Looking Young, He May Be Sure That They Think He Is Growing Old.
Funny
Birthday
Men
True Thinkers Are Characterized By A Blending Of Clearness And Mystery.
Mystery
Thinker
Clearness
The Miserable's Name Is Man; He Is Agonizing In All Climes, And He Is Groaning In All Languages.
Wisdom
Men
Names
A One-eyed Man Is Much More Incomplete Than A Blind Man, For He Knows What It Is That's Lacking.
Men
Blind
Incomplete
Everybody Has Noticed The Way Cats Stop And Loiter In A Half-open Door. Hasn't Everyone Said To A Cat: For Heavens Sake Why Don't You Come In? With Opportunity Half-open In Front Of Them, There Are Men Who Have A Similar Tendency To Remain Undecided Between Two Solutions, At The Risk Of Being Crushed By Fate Abruptly Closing The Opportunity. The Overprudent, Cats As They Are, And Because They Are Cats, Sometimes Run More Danger Than The Bold
Running
Cat
Fate
Reaction - A Boat Which Is Going Against The Current But Which Does Not Prevent The River From Flowing On.
Wisdom
Rivers
Doe
It Is Only Barbarous Nations Who Have A Sudden Growth After A Victory
Growth
Victory
Nigeria Independence
A Day Will Come When All Nations On Our Continent Will Form A European Brotherhood... A Day Will Come When We Shall See... The United States Of America And The United States Of Europe Face To Face, Reaching Out For Each Other Across The Seas.
Country
Europe
Sea
She Was A Lovely Blonde, With Fine Teeth. She Had Gold And Pearls For Her Dowry; But Her Gold Was On Her Head, And Her Pearls Were In Her Mouth.
Lovely
Gold
Blonde
Trending Author
Tahar Ben Jelloun
Franka Potente
Craig T. Nelson
Cheryl Cole
J. William Fulbright
Edvard Munch
Category
Information