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

-Victor Hugo

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Nothing Is More Dangerous

Victor Hugo

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

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Positive Thinking

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The Last Resort Of Kings, The Cannonball. The Last Resort Of The People, The Paving Stone.

Youth, Even In Its Sorrows, Always Has A Brilliancy Of Its Own.

I'd Rather Be Hissed At For A Good Verse, Than Applauded For A Bad One.

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

One Can Resist The Invasion Of An Army But One Cannot Resist The Invasion Of Ideas.

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

For Prying Into Any Human Affairs, Non Are Equal To Those Whom It Does Not Concern.

Nothing Is Really Small; Whoever Is Open To The Deep Penetration Of Nature Knows This.

It Is The Peculiarity Of Grief To Bring Out The Childish Side Of Man.

Knowledge Is A Weight Added To Conscience.

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

To Think Is Of Itself To Be Useful; It Is Always And In All Cases A Striving Toward God.

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

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

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

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

...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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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)

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

It Was She. Whoever Has Loved Knows All The Radiant Meaning Contained In The Three Letters Of This Word ‘she.

We Teachers Make The Road, Others Will Make The Journey.

"i Should Hope So," Laigle Replied, "for My Coat And I Live Comfortably Together. It Has Assumed All My Wrinkles, Does Not Hurt Me Anywhere, Has Moulded Itself On My Deformities, And Is Complacent To All My Movements, And 1 Only Feel Its Presence Because It Keeps Me Warm."

Love Would Never Be A Promise Of A Rose Garden Unless It Is Showered With Light Of Faith, Water Of Sincerity And Air Of Passion. Sometimes We Make Love With Our Eyes. Sometimes We Make Love With Our Hands. Sometimes We Make Love With Our Bodies. Always We Make Love With Our Hearts. If I Could Reach Up And Hold A Star For Every Time You've Made Me Smile, The Entire Evening Sky Would Be In The Palm Of My Hand. To Love Another Person Is To See The Face Of God.

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.

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.

He Caught Her, She Fell, He Caught Her In His Arms, He Held Her Tightly Unconscious Of What He Was Doing. He Held Her Up, Though Tottering Himself. He Felt As If His Head Were Filled With Smoke; Flashes Of Light Slipped Through His Eyelids; His Thoughts Vanished; It Seemed To Him That He Was Performing A Religious Act, And That He Was Committing A Profanation. Moreover, He Did Not Feel One Passionate Desire For This Ravishing Woman, Whose Form He Felt Against His Heart. He Was Lost In Love.

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

Genius: The Superhuman In Man.

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

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

There Is No More Sovereign Eloquence Than The Truth In Indignation.

War Can Only Be Qualified By Its Object, And There Is Neither Foreign War Nor Civil War, There Is Only Just Or Unjust War.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Music Expresses That Which Cannot Be Put Into Words.

Sound And Music

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

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!

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

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

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

Excitement Is Not Enjoyment: In Calmness Lies True Pleasure. The Most Precious Wines Are Sipped, Not Bolted At A Swallow.

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

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.

If Nobody Loved, The Sun Would Go Out.

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.

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

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

Let Us Fear Ourselves. Prejudices Are The Real Robbers; Vices Are The Real Murderers. The Great Dangers Lie Within Ourselves.

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When Grace Combines With Wrinkles, It Is Admirable. There Is An Indescribable Light Of Dawn About Intensely Happy Old Age. . . . The Young Person Is Handsome, But The Old, Superb.

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

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

Freedom Begins Where It Ends Ignorance.

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

In My Old Age There Is A Coming Into Flower. My Body Wanes; My Mind Waxes.

All Who Suffer Are Full Of Hatred; All Who Live Drag A Remorse: The Dead Alone Have Broken Their Chains.

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

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

Life Is The Flower For Which Love Is The Honey.

To Be A Saint Is The Exception; To Be A Just Person Is The Rule. Err, Stumble, Commit Sin, But Be One Of The Just.

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.

If She Gives Me All Her Time It Is Because I Have All Her Heart.

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

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.

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

Death Belongs To God Alone; By What Right Do Men Touch That Unknown Thing?

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

If A Man Has His Throat Cut In Paris, It's A Murder. If 50,000 People Are Murdered In The East, It Is A Question.

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.

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!

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

Reality Of Life

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

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?

A War Between Europeans Is A Civil War.

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.

To Pay Compliments To The One We Love Is The First Method Of Caressing, A Demi-audacity Venturing. A Compliment Is Something Like A Kiss Through A Veil.

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

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

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.

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

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

God Blesses Man, Not For Having Found But For Having Sought.

No Religion But Blasphemes A Little.

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

She Worked In Order To Live, And Presently Fell In Love, Also In Order To Live, For The Heart, Too, Has Its Hunger.

There Are No Trifles In The Human Story, No Trifling Leaves On The Tree.

There Is No Such Thing As A Little Country. The Greatness Of A People Is No More Determined By Their Numbers Than The Greatness Of A Man Is By His Height.

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

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

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

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

Brothers, He Who Dies Here Dies In The Radiance Of The Future, And We Are Entering A Tomb All Flooded With The Dawn.

We Should Judge A Man Much More Surely From What He Dreams Than From What He Thinks.

Religion, Society, And Nature--these Are The Three Struggles Of Man.

The Flesh Is The Upper Surface Of The Unknown.

Wherever The Turkish Hoof Trods, No Grass Grows.

If Suffer We Must, Let's Suffer On The Heights.

Nature Is Pitiless; She Never Withdraws Her Flowers, Her Music, Her Fragrance, And Her Sunlight From Before Human Cruelty Or Suffering.

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?

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

A Saint Addicted To Excessive Self-abnegation Is A Dangerous Associate; He May Infect You With Poverty, And A Stiffening Of Those Joints Which Are Needed For Advancement-in A Word, With More Renunciation Than You Care For-and So You Flee The Contagion.

We Do Not Comprehend Everything, But We Insult Nothing.

The Repose Of Darkness Is Deeper On The Water Than On The Land.

Happiness Wishes Everybody Happy.

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

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.

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

Progress Is Not Accomplished In One Stage.

Slowly He Took Out The Clothes In Which, Ten Years Beforem Cosette Had Left Montfermeil; First The Little Dress, Then The Black Scarf, Then The Great Heavy Child's Shoes Cosette Could Still Almost Have Worn, So Small Was Her Foot, Then The Vest Of Very Thich Fustian, Then The Knitted Petticoat, The The Apron With Pockets, Then The Wool Stockings.... Then His Venerable White Head Fell On The Bed, This Old Stoical Heart Broke, His Face Was Swallowed Up, So To Speak, In Cosette's Clothes, And Anybody Who Had Passed Along The Staircase At That Moment Would Have Heard Irrepressible Sobbing.

Every Idea Must Have A Visible Enfolding.

A Garden To Walk In And Immensity To Dream In--what More Could He Ask? A Few Flowers At His Feet And Above Him The Stars.

History Has Its Truth, And So Has Legend. Legendary Truth Is Of Another Nature Than Historical Truth. Legendary Truth Is Invention Whose Result Is Reality. Furthermore, History And Legend Have The Same Goal; To Depict Eternal Man Beneath Momentary Man.

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

At A Certain Depth Of Distress, The Poor, In Their Stupor, Groan No Longer Over Evil, And Are No Longer Thankful For Good.

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

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

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.

Social Prosperity Means Man Happy, The Citizen Free, The Nation Great.

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.

The Hand Which Moves Over The Dial Moves Also Among Souls.

He Who Is Not Master Of His Own Thoughts Is Not Accountable For His Own Deeds.

Success Is An Ugly Thing. Men Are Deceived By Its False Resemblances To Merit.... They Confound The Brilliance Of The Firmament With The Star-shaped Footprints Of A Duck In The Mud.

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

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

All Animals Are To Be Found In Men And Each Of Theme Exists In Some Man, Sometimes Several At The Time.

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

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

The Learned Man Knows That He Is Ignorant.

The Wise Man Does Not Grow Old, But Ripens.

The Thirst For The Infinite Proves Infinity.

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

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.

For, To Make Deserts, God, Who Rules Mankind, Begins With Kings, And Ends The Work By Wind.

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

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

A Bird Sings, A Child Prattles, But It Is The Same Hymn; Hymn Indistinct, Inarticulate, But Full Of Profound Meaning.

If God Had Intended That Man Should Go Backward, He Would Have Given Him Eyes In The Back Of His Head.

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

...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.

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.

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

Every Man Is A Book In Which God Himself Writes.

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

Table Talk And Lovers' Talk Equally Elude The Grasp; Lovers' Talk Is Clouds, Table Talk Is Smoke.

Sorrow Is A Fruit. God Does Not Make It Grow On Limbs Too Weak To Bear It.

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

A Republic May Be Called The Climate Of Civilization.

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

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

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.

I Exist," Murmurs Someone Whose Name Is Everyone. "i'm Young And In Love; I Am Old And I Want Rest; I Work, I Prosper, I Do Good Business, I Have Houses To Rent, Money In State Securities; I Am Happy, I Have Wife And Children; I Like All These Things And I Want To Go On Living, So Leave Me Alone."... There Are Moments When All This Casts A Deep Chill On The Large-minded Pioneers Of The Human Race.

I Think, Therefore I Doubt.

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

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.

There Is No Rapture In The Love Which Is Prompted By Esteem; Such Affection Is Lasting, Not Passionate.

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

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

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

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.

He Was At His Own Request And Through His Own Complicity Driven Out Of All His Happinesses One After The Other; And He Had This Sorrow, That After Having Lost Cosette Wholly In One Day, He Was Afterwards Obliged To Lose Her Again In Detail.

A Fall From Such A Height Is Rarely Straight Downwards.

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

The Heart Becomes Heroic Through Passion. It Is No Longer Composed Of Anything But What Is Pure; It No Longer Rests Upon Anything But What Is Elevated And Great.

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

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.

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

Are You Afraid Of The Good You Might Do?

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

So Your Desire Is To Do Nothing? Well, You Shall Not Have A Week, A Day, An Hour, Free From Oppression. You Shall Not Be Able To Lift Anything Without Agony. Every Passing Minute Will Make Your Muscles Crack. What Is Feather To Others Will Be A Rock To You. The Simplest Things Will Become Difficult. Life Will Become Monstrous About You. To Come, To Go, To Breathe, Will Be So Many Terrible Tasks For You. Your Lungs Will Feel Like A Hundred-pound Weight.

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

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

It Is Man's Consolation That The Future Is To Be A Sunrise Instead Of A Sunset.

We Say That Slavery Has Vanished From European Civilization, But This Is Not True. Slavery Still Exists, But Now It Applies Only To Women And Its Name Is Prostitution.

Sacrificing The Earth For Paradise Is Giving Up The Substance For The Shadow.

In The Twentieth Century War Will Be Dead, The Scaffold Will Be Dead, Hatred Will Be Dead, Frontier Boundaries Will Be Dead, Dogmas Will Be Dead; Man Will Live. He Will Possess Something Higher Than All These-a Great Country, The Whole Earth, And A Great Hope, The Whole Heaven.

Prayer Is An August Avowal Of Ignorance.

Curiosity Is Gluttony. To See Is To Devour.

Women Are More Credulous Than Men.

One Drop Of Wine Is Enough To Redden A Whole Glass Of Water.

I Am For Religion, Against Religions.

Against Religion

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

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

France Lost A Great Novel Last Night.

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Brennan Manning

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Napoleon Bonaparte

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