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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?

-Victor Hugo

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I Believe That Pity

Victor Hugo

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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?

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If I Were Jesus Christ, I Would Save Judas.

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.

Loving Is Almost A Substitute For Thinking. Love Is A Burning Forgetfulness Of All Other Things. How Shall We Ask Passion To Be Logical?

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.

Work, Which Makes A Man Free, And Thought, Which Makes Him Worthy Of Freedom.

Symmetry Is Tedious, And Tedium Is The Very Basis Of Mourning. Despair Yawns.

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

So A Voice In The Mountain Is Enough To Let Loose An Avalanche. A Word Too Much May Be Followed By A Caving In. If The Word Had Not Been Spoken, It Would Not Have Happened.

There Is No Distress So Complete But That Even In The Most Critical Moments The Inexplicable Sunrise Of Hope Is Seen In Its Depths.

Critical Moments

Try As You Will, You Cannot Annihilate That Eternal Relic Of The Human Heart, Love.

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.

I Believe, Sir, In All The Progress. Air Navigation Is The Result Of The Oceanic Navigation: From Water The Human Has To Pass In The Air. Everywhere Where Creation Will Be Breathable To Him, The Human Will Penetrate Into The Creation. Our Only Limit Is Life.

I Think, Therefore I Doubt.

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

In The Vast Cosmical Changes, The Universal Life Comes And Goes In Unknown Quantities, ... Sowing An Animalcule Here, Crumbling A Star There, Oscillating And ... Entangling, From The Highest To The Lowest, All Activities In The Obscurity Of A Dizzying Mechanism, Hanging The Flight Of An Insect Upon The Movement Of The Earth... Enormous Gearing, Whose First Motor Is The Gnat, And Whose Last Wheel Is The Zodiac.

Children At Once Accept Joy And Happiness With Quick Familiarity, Being Themselves Naturally All Happiness And Joy.

Let Us Have Compassion For Those Under Chastisement. Alas, Who Are We Ourselves? Who Am I And Who Are You? Whence Do We Come And Is It Quite Certain That We Did Nothing Before We Were Born? This Earth Is Not Without Some Resemblance To A Gaol. Who Knows But That Man Is A Victim Of Divine Justice? Look Closely At Life. It Is So Constituted That One Senses Punishment Everywhere.

She Was Sad With An Obscure Sadness Of Which She Had Not The Secret Herself. There Was In Her Whole Person The Stupor Of A Life Ended But Never Commenced.

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.

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.

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

Conscience Is God Present In Man.

The Most Excellent Symbol Of The People Is The Paving Stone. One Walks On It Until It Falls On One's Head.

God Has Bestowed Two Gifts On Man: Hope And Ignorance. Ignorance Is The Better Of The Two.

The Ideal And The Beautiful Are Identical; The Ideal Corresponds To The Idea, And Beauty To Form; Hence Idea And Substance Are Cognate.

Primitive Times Are Lyrical, Ancient Times Epical, Modern Times Dramatic. The Ode Sings Of Eternity, The Epic Imparts Solemnity Tohistory, The Drama Depicts Life. The Characteristic Of The First Poetry Is Ingeniousness, Of The Second, Simplicity, Of The Third, Truth.

We Shall Look On Crime As A Disease, And Its Physicians Shall Displace The Judges, Its Hospitals Displace The Galleys. Liberty And Health Shall Be Alike. We Shall Pour Balm And Oil Where We Formerly Applied Iron And Fire; Evil Will Be Treated In Charity, Instead Of In Anger. This Change Will Be Simple And Sublime.

The Clouds, - The Only Birds That Never Sleep.

Men Become Accustomed To Poison By Degrees.

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.

Love Is Reducing The Universe To One Being.

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.

Morality Is Truth In Full Bloom.

God Secludes Himself; But The Thinker Listens At The Door.

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.

The Death Agony Of The Barricade Was About To Begin.for, Since The Preceding Evening, The Two Rows Of Houses In The Rue De La Chanvrerie Had Become Two Walls; Ferocious Walls, Doors Closed, Windows Closed, Shutters Closed. A House Is An Escarpment, A Door Is A Refusal, A Facade Is A Wall. This Wall Hears, Sees And Will Not. It Might Open And Save You. No. This Wall Is A Judge. It Gazes At You And Condemns You. What Dismal Things Are Closed Houses.

Science Is Continually Correcting What It Has Said. Fertile Corrections... Science Is A Ladder... Poetry Is A Winged Flight... An Artistic Masterpiece Exists For All Time... Dante Does Not Efface Homer.

We Are For Religion Against The Religions.

The Spirit Of God, Like The Sun, Always Gives All Its Light At Once. The Spirit Of Man Resembles The Pale Moon, Which Has Its Phases, Its Absences And Its Returns, Its Lucidity And Its Spots, Its Fullness And Its Disappearance, Which Borrows All Its Light From The Rays Of The Sun, And Which Still Dares To Intercept Them On Occasion.

Every Good Quality Runs Into A Defect; Economy Borders On Avarice, The Generous Are Not Far From The Prodigal, The Brave Man Is Close To The Bully; He Who Is Very Pious Is Slightly Sanctimonious; There Are Just As Many Vices To Virtue As There Are Holes In The Mantle Of Diogenes.

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.

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

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

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.

As A Means Of Contrast With The Sublime, The Grotesque Is, In Our View, The Richest Source That Nature Can Offer.

Where Would The Shout Of Love Begin, If Not From The Summit Of Sacrifice?

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

There Is Will In The Thought, There Is None In The Dream. The Dream, Which Is Completely Spontaneous, Takes And Keeps, Even In The Gigantic And The Ideal, The Form Of Our Mind. Nothing Springs More Directly And More Sincerely From The Very Bottom Of Our Souls Than Our Unreflected And Indefinite Aspirations Towards The Splendours Of Destiny.

What Is Said About Men Often Has As Much Influence Upon Their Lives, And Especially Upon Their Destinies, As What They Do.

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

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

My Greatness Does Not Extend To This Shelf.

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!

O Darkness, The Sky Is A Gloomy Precinct Whose Door You Close, And Whose Key The Soul Owns; And Night Divides Itself In Half, Being Diabolical And Holy, Between Ilis, The Black Angel, And Christ, The Starry Human Being.

Separated Lovers Cheat Absence By A Thousand Fancies Which Have Their Own Reality. They Are Prevented From Seeing One Another And They Cannot Write; Nevertheless They Find Countless Mysterious Ways Of Corresponding, By Sending Each Other The Song Of Birds, The Scent Of Flowers, The Laughter Of Children.

Nihilism Has No Substance. There Is No Such Thing As Nothingness, And Zero Does Not Exist. Everything Is Something. Nothing Is Nothing.

I Am In The Night. There Is A Being Who Has Gone Away And Carried The Heavens With Her. Oh! To Be Laid Side By Side In The Same Tomb, Hand Clasped In Hand, And From Time To Time, In The Darkness, To Caress A Finger Gently, That Would Suffice For My Eternity.

The Wise Man Is He Who Knows When And How To Stop

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

Her Soul Trembled On Her Lips Like A Drop Of Dew On A Flower.

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By Making Himself A Priest Made Himself A Demon.

Ma Vie Est Une énigme Dont Ton Nom Est Le Mot. (my Life Is An Enigma, Of Which Your Name Is The Word.)

...we Pray Together, We Are Afraid Together, And Then We Go To Sleep. Even If Satan Came Into The House, No One Would Interfere. After All, What Is There To Fear In This House? There Is Always One With Us Who Is The Strongest. Satan May Visit Our House, But The Good Lord Lives Here.

One Sometimes Says: 'he Killed Himself Because He Was Bored With Life.' One Ought Rather To Say: 'he Killed Himself Because He Was Bored By Lack Of Life.'

Ideas Can No More Flow Backward Than Can A River.

Love Partakes Of The Soul Itself. It Is Of The Same Nature. Like It, It Is A Divine Spark, Like It, It Is Incorruptible, Indivisible, Imperishable, It Is The Point Of Fire Which Is Within Us, Which Is Immortal And Infinite, Which Nothing Can Limit And Nothing Can Extinguish.

God Has Made The Cat To Give Man The Pleasure Of Caressing The Tiger.

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.

A Breath Of Paris Preserves The Soul.

A Compliment Is Something Like A Kiss Through A Veil.

I Am An Intelligent River Which Has Reflected Successively All The Banks Before Which It Has Flowed By Meditating Only On The Images Offered By Those Changing Shores.

I Dislike Wealth And Prosperity, Especially That Of Other Men.

Reaction - A Boat Which Is Going Against The Current But Which Does Not Prevent The River From Flowing On.

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.

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

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Habit Is The Nursery Of Errors.

He Sought...to Transform The Grief Which Looks Down Into The Grave By Showing It The Grief Which Looks Up To The Stars.

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!

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

Enthusiasm Is The Fever Of Reason.

If You Are Stone, Be Magnetic; If A Plant, Be Sensitive; But If You Are Human Be Love.

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.

The Little People Must Be Sacred To The Big Ones, And It Is From The Rights Of The Weak That The Duty Of The Strong Is Comprised.

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

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 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.

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.

One Cannot Resist An Idea Whose Time Has Come.

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.

His Judgement Demonstrates That One Can Be A Genius And Understand Nothing Of An Art That Is Not One's Own.

Change Your Opinions, Keep To Your Principles; Change Your Leaves, Keep Intact Your Roots.

Desiring Always To Be In Mourning, He Clothed Himself With Night.

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.

Genius Is Rare Because The Means Of Becoming One Have Not Been Available

It Is Only Barbarous Nations Who Have A Sudden Growth After A Victory

Nigeria Independence

To Crush Out Fanaticism And Revere The Infinite, Such Is The Law. Let Us Not Confine Ourselves To Falling Prostrate Beneath The Tree Of Creation And Contemplating Its Vast Ramifications Full Of Stars. We Have A Duty To Perform, To Cultivate The Human Soul, To Defend Mystery Against Miracle, To Adore The Incomprehensible And To Reject The Absurd; To Admit Nothing That Is Inexplicable Excepting What Is Necessary, To Purify Faith And Obliterate Superstition From The Face Of Religion, To Remove The Vermin From The Garden Of God.

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

If The Soul Is Left In Darkness, Sins Will Be Committed. The Guilty One Is Not He Who Commits The Sin, But The One Who Causes The Darkness.

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.

It Is Grievous For A Man To Leave Behind Him A Shadow In His Own Shape.

A Fixed Idea Ends In Madness Or Heroism.

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

Babylon Violated Diminishes Alexander; Rome Enslaved Diminishes Caesar; Massacred Jerusalem Diminishes Titus. Tyranny Follows The Tyrant. Woe To The Man Who Leaves Behind A Shadow That Bears His Form.

My Day's Work Will Begin Again The Next Morning. The Tomb Is Not A Blind Alley.

In 1815, M. Charles-francois-bienvenu Myriel Was Bishop Of D—— He Was An Old Man Of About Seventy-five Years Of Age; He Had Occupied The See Of D—— Since 1806.

Spira, Spera. (breathe, Hope)

Woman, Nude, Is The Blue Sky. Clouds And Garments Are An Obstacle To Contemplation. Beauty And Infinity Would Be Gazed Upon Unveiled.

Science Says The First Word On Everything, And The Last Word On Nothing.

A Day Will Come When Markets, Open To Trade, And Minds, Open To Ideas, Will Become The Sole Battlefield.

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.

He Who Is Not Capable Of Enduring Poverty Is Not Capable Of Being Free.

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

Music Is The Vapor Of Art. It Is To Poetry What Reverie Is To Thought, What Fluid Is To Solid, What The Ocean Of Clouds Is To The Ocean Of Waves.

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

He Never Went Out Without A Book Under His Arm, And He Often Came Back With Two.

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

All That Was Neither A City, Nor A Church, Nor A River, Nor Color, Nor Light, Nor Shadow: It Was Reverie. For A Long Time, I Remained Motionless, Letting Myself Be Penetrated Gently By This Unspeakable Ensemble, By The Serenity Of The Sky And The Melancholy Of The Moment. I Do Not Know What Was Going On In My Mind, And I Could Not Express It; It Was One Of Those Ineffable Moments When One Feels Something In Himself Which Is Going To Sleep And Something Which Is Awakening.

Freedom Begins Where It Ends Ignorance.

When The Heart Is Dry The Eye Is Dry.

What Matters Deafness Of The Ear, When The Mind Hears? The One True Deafness, The Incurable Deafness, Is That Of The Mind.

Cheerfulness Is Like Money Well Expended In Charity; The More We Dispense Of It, The Greater Our Possession.

Close By The Rights Of Man, At The Least Set Beside Them, Are The Rights Of The Spirit.

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

His Universal Compassion Was Due Less To Natural Instinct, Than To A Profound Conviction, A Sum Of Thoughts That In The Course Of Living Had Filtered Through To His Heart: For In The Nature Of Man, As In Rock, There May Be Channels Hollowed By The Dropping Of Water, And These Can Never Be Destroyed.

The Mountains, The Forest, And The Sea, Render Men Savage; They Develop The Fierce, But Yet Do Not Destroy The Human.

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

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.

Where The Telescope Ends The Microscope Begins, And Which Has The Wider Vision?

[t]he Small Is Great, The Great Is Small; All Is In Equilibrium In Necessity.

By Putting Forward The Hands Of The Clock You Shall Not Advance The Hour.

And The Dream That Our Mind Had Sketched In Haste Shall Others Continue, But Never Complete. For None Upon Earth Can Achieve His Scheme; The Best As The Worst Are Futile Here: We Wake At The Self-same Point Of The Dream, All Is Here Begun, And Finished Elsewhere.

Go To Sleep In Peace. God Is Awake.

To Learn To Read Is To Light A Fire.

He Loved Books; Books Are Cold But Safe Friends.

Humanity Is Our Common Lot. All Men Are Made Of The Same Clay. There Is No Difference, At Least Here On Earth, In The Fate Assigned To Us. We Come Of The Same Void, Inhabit The Same Flesh, Are Dissolved In The Same Ashes. But Ignorance Infecting The Human Substance Turns It Black, And That Incurable Blackness, Gaining Possession Of The Soul, Becomes Evil.

Puns Are The Droppings Of Soaring Wits.

Whom Man Kills, Him God Restoreth To Life.

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

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

Emotion Is Always New.

My Tastes Are Aristocratic, My Actions Democratic.

Years Place At Last A Venerable Crown Upon A Head.

A Translation In Verse . . . Seems To Me Something Absurd, Impossible.

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.

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

An Intelligent Hell Would Be Better Than A Stupid Paradise.

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

God Is Behind Everything, But Everything Hides God.

Now Life Has Killed The Dream I Dreamed.

The Supreme Ordeal, Let Us Say Rather, The Only Ordeal, Is The Loss Of The Beloved Being.

Every Man Is A Book In Which God Himself Writes.

Freedom In Art, Freedom In Society, This Is The Double Goal Towards Which All Consistent And Logical Minds Must Strive.

Nature Has Made A Pebble And A Female. The Lapidary Makes The Diamond, And The Lover Makes The Woman.

One Is Not Idle Because One Is Absorbed. There Is Both Visible And Invisible Labor. To Contemplate Is To Toil, To Think Is To Do. The Crossed Arms Work, The Clasped Hands Act. The Eyes Upturned To Heaven Are An Act Of Creation.

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

Stupidity Talks, Vanity Acts.

If You Are Leaving That Sorrowful Place With Hate And Anger Against Men, You Are Worthy Of Compassion; If You Leave It With Good Will, Gentleness And Peace, You Are Better Than Any Of Us.

A Queen, Devoid Of Beauty Is Not Queen; She Needs The Royalty Of Beauty's Mien.

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?

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.

Each Of Our Passions, Even Love, Has A Stomach That Must Not Be Overloaded. We Must In Everything Write The Word 'finis' In Time; We Must Restrain Ourselves, When It Becomes Urgent; We Must Draw The Bolt On The Appetite, Play A Fantasia On The Violin, Then Break The Strings With Our Own Hand. The Wise Man Is He Who Knows When And How To Stop.

The Delight We Inspire In Others Has This Enchanting Peculiarity That, Far From Being Diminished Like Every Other Reflection, It Returns To Us More Radiant Than Ever.

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

The Most Ferocious Animals Are Disarmed By Caresses To Their Young.

In The Animal World No Creature Born To Be A Dove Turns Into A Scavenger. This Happens Only Among Men.

Creation Lives, Grows, And Multiplies; Man Is But A Witness.

At Least You Are Mine! Soon – In A Few Months, Perhaps, My Angel Will Sleep In My Arms, Will Awaken In My Arms, Will Live There. All Your Thought At All Moments, All Your Looks Will Be For Me; All My Thought, All My Moments, All My Looks Will Be For You!

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

We Are Given Up To Those Gods, Those Monsters, Those Giants, — Our Thoughts.

The Sewer Is The Conscience Of The City.

The Straight Line, A Respectable Optical Illusion Which Ruins Many A Man.

Optical Illusions

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.

The Quantity Of Civilization Is Measured By The Quality Of Imagination.

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.

To Rise From Error To Truth Is Rare And Beautiful.

Wisdom Is A Sacred Communion.

To Err Is Human. To Loaf Is Parisian.

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.

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

...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.

Work Is The Law Of Life, And To Reject It As Boredom Is To Submit To It As Torment.

Marius And Cosette Did Not Ask Where This Would Lead Them. They Looked At Themselves As Arrived. It Is A Strange Pretension For Men To Ask That Love Should Lead Them Somewhere.

I Had A Dream My Life Would Be Different From This Hell I Am Living, So Different From What It Seemed. Now Life Has Killed The Dream I Dreamed.

Man's Greatest Actions Are Performed In Minor Struggles. Life, Misfortune, Isolation, Abandonment And Poverty Are Battlefields Which Have Their Heroes - Obscure Heroes Who Are At Times Greater Than Illustrious Heroes.

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.

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

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

Emergencies Have Always Been Necessary To Progress. It Was Darkness Which Produced The Lamp. It Was Fog That Produced The Compass. It Was Hunger That Drove Us To Exploration. And It Took A Depression To Teach Us The Real Value Of A Job.

France Lost A Great Novel Last Night.

A Great Artist Is A Great Man In A Great Child.

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

It Is An Unpleasant Thing To Go To Bed Without Supper, It Is A Still Less Pleasant Thing Not To Sup And Not To Know Where One Is To Sleep.

There Is A Way Of Meeting Error While On The Road Of Truth.

Every Blade Has Two Edges; He Who Wounds With One Wounds Himself With The Other.

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

...the Girls Chirped And Chatted Like Uncaged Warblers. They Were Delirious With Joy... Intoxications Of Life’s Morning! Enchanted Years! The Wing Of A Dragonfly Trembles! Oh, Reader, Whoever You May Be, Do You Have Such Memories? Have You Walked In The Underbrush, Pushing Aside Branches For The Charming Head Behind You? Have You Slid Laughing, Down Some Slope Wet With Rain, With The Woman You Loved?

Scepticism, That Dry Caries Of The Intelligence.

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.

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