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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.

-Victor Hugo

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So Your Desire Is

Victor Hugo

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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.

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What Happened Between Those Two Beings? Nothing. They Were Adoring One Another.

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.

I'd Like A Drink. I Desire To Forget Life. Life Is A Hideous Invention By Somebody I Don't Know. It Doesn't Last, And It's Good For Nothing. You Break Your Neck Simply Living.

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

There Is Such A Thing As The Pressure Of Darkness.

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.

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.

Ideas Can No More Flow Backward Than Can A River.

Ecclesiastes Names Thee Almighty, The Maccabees Name Thee Creator, The Epistle To The Ephesians Names Thee Liberty, Baruch Names Thee Immensity, The Psalms Name Thee Wisdom And Truth, John Names Thee Light, The Book Of Kings Names Thee Lord, Exodus Names Thee Providence, Leviticus Sanctity, Esdras Justice, Creation Names Thee God, Man Names Thee Father; But Solomon Names Thee Compassion, Which Is The Most Beautiful Of All Thy Names.

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

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.

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

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

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

Strange To Say, The Luminous World Is The Invisible World; The Luminous World Is That Which We Do Not See. Our Eyes Of Flesh See Only Night.

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.

I'm Not In The World To Guard My Own Life, But To Guard Souls

Every Bad Institution Of This World Ends By Suicide.

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.'

One Resists The Invasion Of Armies; One Does Not Resist The Invasion Of Ideas.

Anger May Be Foolish And Absurd, And One May Be Wrongly Irritated, But A Man Never Feels Outraged Unless In Some Respect He Is Fundamentally Right.

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.

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.

Be Happy Without Picking Flaws.

Joy's Smile Is Much Closer To Tears Than Laughter.

Wisdom Is A Sacred Communion.

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

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

A Sewer Is A Cynic. It Tells All.

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.

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

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.

Let Us Sacrifice One Day To Gain Perhaps A Whole Life.

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

Human Society, The World, And The Whole Of Mankind Is To Be Found In The Alphabet.

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.

I Would Rather Be The Head Of A Fly Than The Tail Of A Lion.

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

As The Purse Is Emptied, The Heart Is Filled.

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

Reality Of Life

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

God In His Harmony Has Equal Ends For Cedar That Resists And Reed That Bends; For Good It Is A Woman Sometimes Rules, Holds In Her Hand The Power, And Manners, Schools, And Laws, And Mind; Succeeding Master Proud, With Gentle Voice And Smiles She Leads The Crowd, The Somber Human Troop.

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

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

History Has Its Truth; And So Has Legend Hers.

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.

To Divinise Is Human, To Humanise Is Divine.

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?

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.

Love Is A Portion Of The Soul Itself, And It Is Of The Same Nature As The Celestial Breathing Of The Atmosphere Of Paradise.

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

...man Lives By Affirmation Even More Than He Does By Bread.

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.

It Is The Essence Of Truth That It Is Never Excessive. Why Should It Exaggerate? There Is That Which Should Be Destroyed And That Which Should Be Simply Illuminated And Studied. How Great Is The Force Of Benevolent And Searching Examination! We Must Not Resort To The Flame Where Only Light Is Required.

Exaggeration Is

What Love Commences Can Be Finished By God Alone.

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

...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?

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.

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.

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

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

The World Of Sleep Has An Existence Of Its Own.

Is It Not When The Fall Is The Lowest That Charity Ought To Be The Greatest?

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

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.

Life Is The Flower For Which Love Is The Honey.

Algebra Applies To The Clouds.

The Soul Does Not Give Itself Up To Despair Until It Has Exhausted All Illusions.

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.

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

The Merciful Precepts Of Christ Will At Last Suffuse The Code And It Will Glow With Their Radiance. Crime Will Be Considered An Illness With Its Own Doctors To Replace Your Judges And Its Hospitals To Replace Your Prisons. Liberty Shall Be Equated With Health. Ointments And Oil Shall Be Applied To Limbs That Were Once Shackled And Branded. Infirmities That Once Were Scourged With Anger Shall Now Be Bathed With Love. The Cross In Place Of The Gallows: Sublime And Yet So Simple.

Phenomena Intersect; To See But One Is To See Nothing.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Every Man Is A Book In Which God Himself Writes.

I Represent A Party Which Does Not Yet Exist: The Party Revolution-civilization. This Party Will Make The Twentieth Century. There Will Issue From It First The United States Of Europe, Then The United States Of The World.

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?

If It Were (is It Not) Outrageous That Society Should Treat With Such Rigid Precision Those Of Its Members Who Were Most Poorly Endowed In The Distribution Or Wealth That Chance Had Made, And Who Were, Therefore, Most Worthy Of Indulgence.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A Shadow Is Hard To Seize By The Throat And Dash To The Ground.

Popularity - A Piece Of Faded Tinsel, That Is Out Of Date.

Conscience Is God Present In Man.

To Rise From Error To Truth Is Rare And Beautiful.

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.

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!

Dark Error's Other Hidden Side Is Truth.

This Conflict Between Right And Fact Has Endured Since The Origins Of Society. To Bring The Duel To An End, To Consolidate The Pure Ideal With The Human Reality, To Make The Right Peacefully Interpenetrate The Fact, And The Fact The Right, This Is The Work Of The Wise.

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

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.

The True Artist Can Only Labor Con Amore.

‎"dost Thou Understand? I Love Thee!" He Cried Again."what Love!" Said The Unhappy Girl With A Shudder.he Resumed,--"the Love Of A Damned Soul.

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.

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?

Dreaming Is Happiness. Waiting Is Life.

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

Symmetry Is Ennui, And Ennui Is The Very Essence Of Grief And Melancholy. Despair Yawns.

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

To Introduce A New Play Only Six Weeks After Another Has Been Banned Is Also A Way To Speak One's Piece To The Government. It Proves That Art And Liberty Can Grow Back In One Night Under The Clumsy Foot Which Crushes Them.

To Love Is The Half Of To Believe.

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.

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

Puns Are The Droppings Of Soaring Wits.

Woe, Alas, To Those Who Have Loved Only Bodies, Forms, Appearances! Death Will Rob Them Of Everything. Try To Love Souls, You Will Find Them Again.

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

There Are Things Stronger Than The Strongest Man.

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

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.

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.

Everything Being A Constant Carnival, There Is No Carnival Left.

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

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

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

Genius Is A Promontory Jutting Out Into The Infinite.

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.

A Writer Is A World Trapped In A Person.

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.

Do You Know What Friendship Is... It Is To Be Brother And Sister; Two Souls Which Touch Without Mingling, Two Fingers On One Hand.

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.

Youth Is The Future Smiling At A Stranger, Which Is Itself.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Wherever The Turkish Hoof Trods, No Grass Grows.

For True Poetry, Complete Poetry, Consists In The Harmony Of Contraries. Hence, It Is Time To Say Aloud--and It Is Here Above Allthat Exceptions Prove The Rule--that Everything That Exists In Nature Exists In Art.

Men Become Accustomed To Poison By Degrees.

God Was Bored By Him.

Since We Shall Love Each Other, I Shall Be Great And You Shall Be Rich.

A Creditor Is Worse Than A Slave-owner; For The Master Owns Only Your Person, But A Creditor Owns Your Dignity, And Can Command It.

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

You Who Suffer Because You Love, Love Still More. To Die Of Love, Is To Live By It.

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!

When A Man Understands The Art Of Seeing, He Can Trace The Spirit Of An Age And The Features Of A King Even In The Knocker On A Door.

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.

To Die Is Nothing; But It Is Terrible Not To Live.

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

That Is The Explanation Of War, An Outrage By Humanity Upon Humanity In Despite Of Humanity.

The Soul Has Illusions As The Bird Has Wings: It Is Supported By Them.

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

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

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

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 Greatest Products Of Architecture Are Less The Works Of Individuals Than Of Society; Rather The Offspring Of A Nation's Effort, Than The Inspired Flash Of A Man Of Genius.

Revolutions Are Not Born Of Chance But Of Necessity.

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.

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

Genius: The Superhuman In Man.

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.

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.

God Knows Better Than We Do What We Need.

Toleration Is The Best Religion.

Women Are More Credulous Than Men.

I Like The Laughter That Opens The Lips And The Heart, Shows At The Same Time The Pearls And The Soul.

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.

The Hatred Of Luxury Is Not An Intelligent Hatred. It Implies A Hatred Of Arts.

No One Can Keep A Secret Better Than A Child.

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

God Has Set His Intentions In The Flowers, In The Dawn, In The Spring, It Is His Will That We Should Love.

Now Life Has Killed The Dream I Dreamed.

"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."

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.

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.

Popularity? It's Glory's Small Change.

Foppery Is The Egotism Of Clothes.

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

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

Memory Is A Gulf That A Word Can Move To Its Lowest Depths.

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

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

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

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

People Do Not Lack Strength; They Lack Will.

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

Nobody Knows Like A Woman How To Say Things At The Same Time Sweet And Profound. Sweetness And Depth, This Is All Of Woman; This Is All Of Heaven.

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

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

The Beautiful Is As Useful As The Useful." He Added After A Moment’s Silence, "perhaps More So.

A Wedding Is Not House-keeping.

If People Did Not Love One Another, I Really Don't See What Use There Would Be In Having Any Spring.

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 Human Soul Has Still Greater Need Of The Ideal Than Of The Real. It Is By The Real That We Exist; It Is By The Ideal That We Live.

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

The Guilty One Is Not He Who Commits The Sin, But He Who Causes The Darkness.

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.

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

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

You Are Adorable, Mademoiselle. I Study Your Feet With The Microscope And Your Soul With The Telescope.

It Is Most Pleasant To Commit A Just Action Which Is Disagreeable To Someone Whom One Does Not Like.

I Believe In Religion Against The Religious; In The Pitifulness Of Orisons, And In The Sublimity Of Prayer.

Smallness In A Great Man Seems Smaller By Its Disproportion With All The Rest.

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

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