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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.

-Victor Hugo

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Nothing Can Be Sadder

Victor Hugo

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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.

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

Revolutions Spring Not From Accident, But From Necessity. A Revolution Is A Return From The Factitious To The Real. It Takes Place Because It Must.

The Jostling Of Young Minds Against Each Other Has This Wonderful Attribute, That One Can Never Foresee The Spark, Nor Predict The Flash. What Will Spring Up In A Moment? Nobody Knows.

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

Oh! Everything I Loved!

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

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.

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.

Whom Man Kills, Him God Restoreth To Life.

The First Symptom Of True Love In A Man Is Timidity, In A Young Woman, Boldness. This Is Surprising, And Yet Nothing Is More Simple. It Is The Two Sexes Tending To Approach Each Other And Assuming Each The Other's Qualities.

There Is Something More Terrible Than A Hell Of Suffering--a Hell Of Boredom.

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

She Loved With So Much Passion As She Loved With Ignorance. She Did Not Know Whether It Were Good Or Evil, Beneficent Or Dangerous, Necessary Or Accidental, Eternal Or Transitory, Permitted Or Prohibited: She Loved.

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.

The Realities Of Life Do Not Allow Themselves To Be Forgotten.

Reality Of Life

I Will Be Chateaubriand Or Nothing.

Be Happy Without Picking Flaws.

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

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

For Dogs We Kings Should Have Lions, And For Cats, Tigers. The Great Benefits A Crown.

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

The Most Beautiful Of Altars, He Said, Is The Soul Of An Unhappy Creature Consoled And Thankfing God.

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

There Comes An Hour When Protest No Longer Suffices; After Philosophy There Must Be Action; The Strong Hand Finishes What The Idea Has Sketched.

There Are Many Lovely Women, But No Perfect Ones.

We Are For Religion Against The Religions.

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

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

He Was Fond Of Books, For They Are Cool And Sure Friends

Our Acts Make Or Mar Us, We Are The Children Of Our Own Deeds.

Architecture Has Recorded The Great Ideas Of The Human Race. Not Only Every Religious Symbol, But Every Human Thought Has Its Page In That Vast Book.

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.

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

Forget Not, Never Forget That You Have Promised Me To Use This Silver To Become An Honest Man.... Jean Valjean, My Brother: You Belong No Longer To Evil, But To Good. It Is Your Soul That I Am Buying For You. I Withdraw It From Dark Thoughts And From The Spirit Of Perdition, And I Give It To God!

To A Gargoyle On The Ramparts Of Notre Dame As Esmeralda Rides Off With Gringoire Quasimodo Says. "why Was I Not Made Of Stone Like Thee?

Indigestion Is Charged By God With Enforcing Morality On The Stomach.

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.

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

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

A Wretched Woman Is More Unfortunate Than A Wretched Man.

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.

Fashions Have Done More Harm Than Revolutions.

God Knows Better Than We Do What We Need.

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

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

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.

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

Nothing Is More True, More Real, Than The Primeval Magnetic Disturbances That Two Souls May Communicate To One Another, Through The Tiny Sparks Of A Moment's Glance.

Who Then Can Calculate The Path Of The Molecule? How Do We Know That The Creations Of Worlds Are Not Determined By The Fall Of Grains Of Sand?

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.

. . .where There Is No More Hope, Song Remains.

These Are True Felicities. No Joy Beyond These Joys. Love Is The Only Ecstasy, Everything Else Weeps

What Is Called Honors And Dignities, And Even Honor And Dignity, Is Generally Fool's Gold.

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

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

Have Courage For The Great Sorrows Of Life And Patience For The Small Ones; And When You Have Laboriously Accomplished Your Daily Task, Go To Sleep In Peace.

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

We See Past Time In A Telescope And Present Time In A Microscope. Hence The Apparent Enormities Of The Present.

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

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.

There Is A Secret Drawer In Every Woman's Heart.

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

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.

A Thousand Men Enslaved Fear One Beast Free.

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.

Emotion Is Always New.

Have But Luck, And You Will Have The Rest; Be Fortunate, And You Will Be Thought Great.

Human Intelligence Discovered A Way Of Perpetuating Itself, One Not Only More Durable And More Resistant Than Architecture, But Also Simpler And Easier. Architecture Was Dethroned. The Stone Letters Of Orpheus Gave Way To The Lead Letters Of Gutenburg. The Book Will Kill The Edifice.

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.

...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 Criminal Remains A Criminal Whether He Uses A Convict's Suit Or A Monarch's Crown.

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.

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?

Stupidity Talks, Vanity Acts.

Pain Is As Diverse As Man. One Suffers As One Can.

Every Day Has Its Great Grief Or Its Small Anxiety. ... One Cloud Is Dispelled, Another Forms. There Is Hardly One Day In A Hundred Of Real Joy And Bright Sunshine.

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

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

To Rise At Six, To Dine At Ten, To Sup At Six, To Sleep At Ten, Makes A Man Live For Ten Times Ten.

In Every Cradle Decked With Rosy Wreath Lurk Germs Of Death.

Can Human Nature Ever Be Wholly And Radically Transformed? Can The Man Whom God Made Good Be Made Wicked By Man? Can The Soul Be Reshaped In Its Entirety By Destiny And Made Evil Because Destiny Is Evil? Can The Heart Become Misshapen And Afflicted With Ugly, Incurable Deformities Under Disproportionate Misfortune, Like A Spinal Column Bent Beneath A Too Low Roof?

Progress Is The Stride Of God.

The Poetic Element Lying Hidden In Most Women Is The Source Of Their Magnetic Attraction.

Those Who Every Morning Plan The Transactions Of The Day And Follow Out That Plan Carry A Thread That Will Guide Them Through The Labyrinth Of The Most Busy Life. The Orderly Arrangement Of Their Time Is Like A Ray Of Light Which Darts Itself Through All Their Occupations. But Where No Plan Is Laid, Where The Disposal Of Time Is Surrendered Merely To The Chance Of Incidents, Chaos Will Soon Reign.

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.

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.

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

God Made Only Water, But Man Made Wine.

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.

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

That Is To Be Two And To Be But One. A Man And A Woman Mingled Into One Angel. It Is Heaven.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Curiosity Is Gluttony. To See Is To Devour.

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 See Black Light (his Last Words)

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

Most Commonly Revolt Is Born Of Material Circumstances; But Insurrection Is Always A Moral Phenomenon. Revolt Is Masaniello, Who Led The Neapolitan Insurgents In 1647; But Insurrection Is Spartacus. Insurrection Is A Thing Of The Spirit, Revolt Is A Thing Of The Stomach.

M. Mabeuf’s Political Opinion Was A Passionate Fondness For Plants, And A Still Greater One For Books. He Had, Like Everybody Else, His Termination In Ist, Without Which Nobody Could Have Lived In Those Times, But He Was Neither A Royalist, Nor A Bonapartist, Nor A Chartist, Nor An Orleanist, Nor An Anarchist; He Was An Old-bookist.

Political Opinions

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

How Frightened Hypocrisy Hastens To Defend Itself.

I Refuse The Oration Of All Churches. I Ask A Prayer Of All Souls. I Believe In God.

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

Do Not Forget, Do Not Ever Forget, That You Have Promised Me To Use The Money To Make Yourself An Honest Man.' Valjean, Who Did Not Recall Having Made Any Promise, Was Silent. The Bishop Had Spoken The Words Slowly And Deliberately. He Concluded With A Solemn Emphasis: Jean Valjean, My Brother, You No Longer Belong To What Is Evil But To What Is Good. I Have Bought Your Soul To Save It From Black Thoughts And The Spirit Of Perdition, And I Give It To God.

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.

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

A Compliment Is Something Like A Kiss Through A Veil.

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.

There Is No Vacuum In The Human Heart. Certain Demolitions Take Place, And It Is Well That They Do, But On Condition That They Are Followed By Reconstructions.

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

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.

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!

Puns Are The Droppings Of Soaring Wits.

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

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

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.

Monastic Incarceration Is Castration.

Prayer Is An August Avowal Of Ignorance.

It Seemed To Be A Necessary Ritual That He Should Prepare Himself For Sleep By Meditating Under The Solemnity Of The Night Sky... A Mysterious Transaction Between The Infinity Of The Soul And The Infinity Of The Universe.

God Will Reward You,' He Said. 'you Must Be An Angel Since You Care For Flowers.

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.

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.

The Mind's Eye Can Nowhere Find Anything More Dazzling Or More Dark Than In Man; It Can Fix Itself Upon Nothing Which Is More Awful, More Complex, More Mysterious, Or More Infinite. 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.

Spira, Spera. (breathe, Hope)

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.

The World Of Sleep Has An Existence Of Its Own.

Nations, Like Stars, Are Entitled To Eclipse. All Is Well, Provided The Light Returns And The Eclipse Does Not Become Endless Night. Dawn And Resurrection Are Synonymous. The Reappearance Of The Light Is The Same As The Survival Of The Soul.

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

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!

Men Hate Those To Whom They Have To Lie.

They Say Love Is Blindness Of Heart; I Say Not To Love Is Blindness.

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.

I Was Always A Lover Of Soft-winged Things.

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.

To Meditate Is To Labour; To Think Is To Act. Folded Arms Work, Closed Hands Perform, A Gaze Fixed On Heaven Is A Toil.

It Is From Books That Wise Men Derive Consolation In The Troubles Of Life.

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.

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.

Diamonds Are Found Only In The Dark Places Of The Earth, Truths Are Found Only In The Depths Of Thought.

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?

The Owl Goes Not Into The Nest Of The Lark.

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.

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

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.

Who Among Us Has Not Sought Peace In A Song?

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!

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!

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

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.

The Ox Suffers, The Cart Complains.

To Divinise Is Human, To Humanise Is Divine.

The Soul Has Greater Need Of The Ideal Than Of The Real

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

Genuflection Before The Idol Or The Dollar Destroys The Muscles Which Walk And The Will That Moves.

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.

Nothing Makes A Man So Adventurous As An Empty Pocket.

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

Give To A Being The Useless, And Deprive Him Of The Needful, And You Have The Gamin.

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.

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

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.

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!

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

Progress Is The Life-style Of Man.

People Do Not Read Stupidities With Impunity.

I Was Dying When You Came.

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

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

God Created The Flirt As Soon As He Made The Fool.

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.

Civilization Survives On The Constant Discovery Of Amity And An Equal Supply Of Damnation.

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

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

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

Fame Must Have Enemies, As Light Must Have Gnats.

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.

We Do Not Comprehend Everything, But We Insult Nothing.

Need Is A Low Door Which, When We Must By Stern Necessity Pass Through, Forces The Greatest To Bend Down The Most.

The First Proof Of Charity In A Priest, And Especially A Bishop, Is Poverty.

He Who Contemplates The Depths Of Paris Is Seized With Vertigo. Nothing Is More Fantastic. Nothing Is More Tragic. Nothing Is More Sublime.

A One-eyed Man Is Much More Incomplete Than A Blind Man, For He Knows What It Is That's Lacking.

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.

The Onward March Of The Human Race Requires That The Heights Around It Constantly Blaze With Noble Lessons Of Courage. Deeds Of Daring Dazzle History And Form One Of Man's Guiding Lights.

On This Point, The Priest And The Philosopher Agree: We Must Die.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

As For Methods Of Prayer, All Of Them Are Good As Long As They Are Sincere.

Every Bird Which Flies Has The Thread Of The Infinite In Its Claw.

In Winter There Is No Heat, No Light, No Noon, Evening Touches Morning, There Is Fog, And Mist, The Window Is Frosted, And You Cannot See Clearly. The Sky Is But The Mouth Of A Cave. The Whole Day Is The Cave.... Frightful Season! Winter Changes Into Stone The Water Of Heaven And The Heart Of Man.

Emotion Is Always New And The Word Has Always Served; Therein Lies The Difficulty Of Expressing Emotion.

I Wanted To See You Again, Touch You, Know Who You Were, See If I Would Find You Identical With The Ideal Image Of You Which Had Remained With Me And Perhaps Shatter My Dream With The Aid Of Reality. -claude Frollo

...it All Seemed To Him To Have Disappeared As If Behind A Curtain At A Theater. There Are Such Curtains That Drop In Life. God Is Moving On To The Next Act.

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Pliny The Elder

Francesca Annis

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