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One Can No More Keep The Mind From Returning To An Idea Than The Sea From Returning To A Shore. For A Sailor, This Is Called The Tide; In The Case Of The Guilty It Is Called Remorse. God Stirs Up The Soul As Well As The Ocean.

-Victor Hugo

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One Can No More

Victor Hugo

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One Can No More Keep The Mind From Returning To An Idea Than The Sea From Returning To A Shore. For A Sailor, This Is Called The Tide; In The Case Of The Guilty It Is Called Remorse. God Stirs Up The Soul As Well As The Ocean.

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

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

Love Each Other Dearly Always. There Is Scarcely Anything Else In The World But That: To Love One Another.

No Man Is More Unhappy Than The One Who Is Never In Adversity; The Greatest Affliction Of Life Is Never To Be Afflicted.

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.

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

The Malicious Have A Dark Happiness.

There Is A Spectacle More Grand Than The Sea; It Is Heaven; There Is A Spectacle More Grand Than Heaven; It Is The Conscience.

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.

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

Should We Continue To Look Upwards? Is The Light We Can See In The Sky One Of Those Which Will Presently Be Extinguished? The Ideal Is Terrifying To Behold... Brilliant But Threatened On All Sides By The Dark Forces That Surround It: Nevertheless, No More In Danger Than A Star In The Jaws Of The Clouds.

He, Who Every Morning Plans The Transactions Of The Day, And Follows That Plan, Carries A Thread That Will Guide Him Through A Labyrinth Of The Most Busy Life.

I Put A Phrygian Cap On The Old Dictionary.

All The Human And Animal Manure Which The World Wastes, If Returned To The Land, Instead Of Being Thrown Into The Sea, Would Suffice To Nourish The World.

There Are Many Lovely Women, But No Perfect Ones.

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

We Must Never Fear Robbers Or Murderers. They Are Dangers From Outside, Small Dangers. It Is Ourselves We Have To Fear. Prejudice Is The Real Robber, Vice The Real Murderer. Why Should We Be Troubled By A Threat To Our Person Or Our Pocket? What We Have To Beware Of Is The Threat To Our Souls'.

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

Knowledge Is A Weight Added To Conscience.

To Divinise Is Human, To Humanise Is Divine.

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.

Art Moves. Hence Its Civilizing Power.

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

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.

A Language Does Not Become Fixed. The Human Intellect Is Always On The March, Or, If You Prefer, In Movement, And Languages With It.

Thought Is The Labor Of The Intellect, Reverie Is Its Pleasure.

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.

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

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

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

Enthusiasm Is The Fever Of Reason.

All The Forces In The World Are Not So Powerful As An Idea Whose Time Has Come.

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!

A Man Trying To Escape Never Thinks Himself Sufficiently Concealed.

Go Out In The World And Work Like Money Doesn't Matter, Sing As If No One Is Listening, Love As If You Have Never Been Hurt, And Dance As If No One Is Watching.

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.

But Alas, If I Have Not Maintained My Victory, It Is God's Fault For Not Making Man And The Devil Of Equal Strength.

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

Wisdom Is A Sacred Communion.

Strong And Bitter Words Indicate A Weak Cause.

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.

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

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.

A Few Feet Under The Ground Reigns So Profound A Silence, And Yet So Much Tumult On The Surface!

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.

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

There Must Be People Who Pray Even For Those Who Never Pray.

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

The Man Who Does Not Know Other Languages, Unless He Is A Man Of Genius, Necessarily Has Deficiencies In His Ideas.

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

Heaven, On Occasion, Half Opens Its Arms To Us; And That Is The Great Moment.

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.

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

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

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.

A War Between Europeans Is A Civil War.

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

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

A Fall From Such A Height Is Rarely Straight Downwards.

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

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.

What Is Fright By Night Is Curiosity By Day.

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.

Seeing So Much Poverty Everywhere Makes Me Think That God Is Not Rich. He Gives The Appearance Of It, But I Suspect Some Financial Difficulties.

The Great Acts Of Love Are Done By Those Who Are Habitually Performing Small Acts Of Kindness.

The Miserable's Name Is Man; He Is Agonizing In All Climes, And He Is Groaning In All Languages.

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.

Revolutions Are Not Born Of Chance But Of Necessity.

Common Sense Is In Spite Of, Not As The Result Of Education.

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

Reality Of Life

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

You Can Give Without Loving, But You Can Never Love Without Giving. The Great Acts Of Love Are Done By Those Who Are Habitually Performing Small Acts Of Kindness. We Pardon To The Extent That We Love. Love Is Knowing That Even When You Are Alone, You Will Never Be Lonely Again. & Great Happiness Of Life Is The Conviction That We Are Loved. Loved For Ourselves. & Even Loved In Spite Of Ourselves.

He Did Not Study God; He Was Dazzled By Him.

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.

These Are Dark Radiances. They Have No Suspicion That They Are To Be Pitied. Certainly They Are So. He Who Does Not Weep Does Not See. They Are To Be Admired And Pitied, As One Would Both Pity And Admire A Being At Once Night And Day, Without Eyes Beneath His Lashes But With A Star On His Brow.

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

...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.

You Have Enemies? Why, It Is The Story Of Every Man Who Has Done A Great Deed Or Created A New Idea. It Is The Cloud Which Thunders Around Everything That Shines. Fame Must Have Enemies, As Light Must Have Gnats. Do No Bother Yourself About It; Disdain. Keep Your Mind Serene As You Keep Your Life Clear.

I Tried. But I Feel That I Haven't Given Utterance To The Thousandth Part Of What Lies Within Me. When I Go To The Grave I Can Say As Others Have Said, "i Have Finished My Day's Work." But I Cannot Say, "i Have Finished My Life." My Day's Work Will Begin Again The Next Morning. The Tomb Is Not A Blind Alley; It Is A Thoroughfare. It Closes On The Twilight, But Opens On The Dawn.

The Holy Law Of Jesus Christ Governs Our Civilisation, But It Does Not Yet Permeate It.

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.

...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.

To Love Beauty Is To See Light.

The World Of Sleep Has An Existence Of Its Own.

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

Mothers Arms Are Made Of Tenderness, And Sweet Sleep Blesses The Child Who Lies Therein.

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

...there Is A Point When The Unfortunate And The Infamous Are Associated And Confused In A Word, A Mortal Word, Les Miserables

Wisdom Is The Health Of The Soul.

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.

If You Would Civilize A Man, Begin With His Grandmother.

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.

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.

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

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

To Meditate Is To Labour; To Think Is To Act.

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.

To Rove About, Musing, That Is To Say Loitering, Is, For A Philosopher, A Good Way Of Spending Time.

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.

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

When A Man Is Out Of Sight, It Is Not Too Long Before He Is Out Of Mind.

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

We Say And Exclaim Within Ourselves Without Breaking Silence, In A Tumult Where Everything Speaks Except Our Mouths. The Realities Of The Soul Are None The Less Real For Being Invisible And Impalpable.

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.

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.

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

I Didn't Believe It Could Be So Monstrous. It's Wrong To Be So Absorbed In Divine Law As Not To Perceive Human Law. Death Belongs To God Alone. By What Right Do Men Tough That Unknown Thing?

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

There Are No Rules For Felicity.

It Is The Essence Of Truth That It Is Never Excessive.... We Must Not Resort To The Flame Where Only Light Is Required.

Exaggeration Is

Success Is A Very Hideous Thing. Its False Resemblance To Merit Deceives Men.

Initiative Is Doing The Right Thing Without Being Told.

Follow Your Heart

Often When We Think We Are Knotting One Thread, We Are Tying Quite Another.

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.

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.

They Adored Each Other; But Still The Permanent And The Immutable Subsist. We May Love And Laugh, Pout, Clasp Hands, Smile, And Exchange Endearments, But That Does Not Affect Eternity. Two Lovers Hide In The Dusk Of Evening, Amid Flowers And The Twittering Of Birds, And Enchant Each Other With Their Hearts Shinning In Their Eyes; But The Stars In Their Course Still Circle Through Infinite Space.

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.

The Nearer I Approach The End, The Plainer I Hear Around Me The Immortal Symphonies Of The Worlds Which Invite Me. It Is Marvelous, Yet Simple.

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

We Are For Religion Against The Religions.

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

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

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.

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

The Brutalities Of Progress Are Called Revolutions. When They Are Over We Realize This: That The Human Race Has Been Roughly Handled, But That It Has Advanced.

It Is In The Name Of Moses That Bellarmin Thunderstrikes Galileo; And This Great Vulgarizer Of The Great Seeker Copernicus, Galileo, The Old Man Of Truth, The Magian Of The Heavens, Was Reduced To Repeating On His Knees Word For Word After The Inquisitor This Formula Of Shame: "corde Sincera Et Fide Non Ficta Abjuro Maledico Et Detestor Supradictos Errores Et Hereses." Falsehood Put An Ass's Hood On Science.

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

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

Love Is The Foolishness Of Men, And The Wisdom Of God.

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

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

The Parisian Is To The French What The Athenian Was To The Greeks: No One Sleeps Better Than He, No One Is More Openly Frivolous And Idle, No One Appears More Heedless. But This Is Misleading. He Is Given To Every Kind Of Listlessness, But When There Is Glory To Be Won He May Be Inspired With Every Kind Of Fury. Give Him A Pike And He Will Enact The Tenth Of August, A Musket And You Have Austerlitz. He Was The Springboard Of Napoleon And The Mainstay Of Danton. At The Cry Of "la Patrie" He Enrols, And At The Call Of Liberty He Tears Up The Pavements. Beware Of Him!

The Persistence Of An All-absorbing Idea Is Terrible.

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

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.

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

A Republic May Be Called The Climate Of Civilization.

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

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.

His Whole Life Was Now Summed Up In Two Words: Absolute Uncertainty Within An Impenetrable Fog.

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

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

The Three Great Problems Of This Century; The Degradation Of Man In The Proletariat, The Subjection Of Women Through Hunger, The Atrophy Of The Child By Darkness.

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

Men Like Me Are Impossible Until The Day When They Become Necessary.

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

What Love Commences Can Be Finished By God Alone.

Does There Exist An Infinity Outside Ourselves? Is That Infinity One, Immanent And Permanent, Necessarily Having Substance, Since He Is Infinite And If He Lacked Matter He Would Be Limited, Necessarily Possessing Intelligence Since He Is Infinite And, Lacking Intelligence, He Would Be In That Sense Finite. Does This Infinity Inspire In Us The Idea Of Essense, While To Ourselves We Can Only Attribute The Idea Of Existence? In Order Words, Is He Not The Whole Of Which We Are But The Part?

Foppery Is The Egotism Of Clothes.

Peace Is The Virtue Of Civilization. War Is Its Crime.

The Earlier Works Of A Man Of Genius Are Always Preferred To The Newer Ones, In Order To Prove That He Is Going Down Instead Of Up.

The Animal Is Ignorant Of The Fact That He Knows. The Man Is Aware Of The Fact That He Is Ignorant.

I Was Always A Lover Of Soft-winged Things.

He Who Opens A School Door, Closes A Prison.

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

M. Myriel Had To Undergo The Fate Of Every Newcomer In A Little Town, Where There Are Many Mouths Which Talk, And Very Few Heads Which Think.

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

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

Revolution Is The Larva Of Civilization.

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

Nigeria Independence

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

Beauty Is As Useful As The Useful. More So, Perhaps. (le Beau Est Aussi Utile Que L'utile. Plus Peut-etre.)

France Lost A Great Novel Last Night.

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

Positive Thinking

Adversity Makes Men, And Prosperity Makes Monsters.

"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."

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

Don't Educate Your Children To Be Rich. Educate Them To Be Happy, So They Know The Value Of Things, Not The Price.

Loving Is Half Of Believing.

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.

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.

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.

Stupidity Talks, Vanity Acts.

Monastic Incarceration Is Castration.

Dreaming Is Happiness. Waiting Is Life.

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

As For The Author, He Is Profoundly Unaware Of What The Classical Or Romantic Genre Might Consist Of.... In Literature, As In Allthings, There Is Only The Good And The Bad, The Beautiful And The Ugly, The True And The False.

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

The Paradise Of The Rich Is Made Out Of The Hell Of The Poor.

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

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.

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

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

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

Idleness Is A Mother. She Has A Son, Robbery, And A Daughter, Hunger.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

A Writer Is A World Trapped In A Person.

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

Never Laugh At Those Who Suffer; Suffer Sometimes Those Who Laugh.

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.

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

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

A Cannonball Travels Only Two Thousand Miles An Hour; Light Travels Two Hundred Thousand Miles A Second. Such Is The Superiority Of Jesus Christ Over Napoleon.

We Do Not Comprehend Everything, But We Insult Nothing.

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.

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