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The Eye Of A Man Should Be Still More Reverent Before The Rising Of A Young Maiden Than Before The Rising Of A Star. The Possibility Of Touch Should Increase Respect. The Down Of The Peach, The Dust Of The Plum, The Radiated Crystal Of Snow, The Butterfly’s Wing Powdered With Feathers, Are Gross Things Beside That Chastity That Does Not Even Know It Is Chaste. The Young Maiden Is Only The Glimmer Of A Dream And Is Not Yet Statue. Her Alcove Is Hidden In The Shadows Of The Ideal. The Indiscreet Touch Of The Eye Desecrates This Dim Penumbra. Here, To Gaze, Is To Profane.

-Victor Hugo

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The Eye Of A

Victor Hugo

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The Eye Of A Man Should Be Still More Reverent Before The Rising Of A Young Maiden Than Before The Rising Of A Star. The Possibility Of Touch Should Increase Respect. The Down Of The Peach, The Dust Of The Plum, The Radiated Crystal Of Snow, The Butterfly’s Wing Powdered With Feathers, Are Gross Things Beside That Chastity That Does Not Even Know It Is Chaste. The Young Maiden Is Only The Glimmer Of A Dream And Is Not Yet Statue. Her Alcove Is Hidden In The Shadows Of The Ideal. The Indiscreet Touch Of The Eye Desecrates This Dim Penumbra. Here, To Gaze, Is To Profane.

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Music Expresses That Which Cannot Be Put Into Words.

Sound And Music

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.

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

The Memory Of An Absent Person Shines In The Deepest Recesses Of The Heart, Shining The More Brightly The More Wholly Its Object Has Vanished: A Light On The Horizon Of The Despairing, Darkened Spirit; A Star Gleaming In Our Inward Night.

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

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.

Popularity - A Piece Of Faded Tinsel, That Is Out Of Date.

What Love Commences Can Be Finished By God Alone.

The Beginning As Well As The End Of All His Thoughts Was Hatred Of Human Law, That Hatred Which, If It Be Not Checked In Its Growth By Some Providential Event, Becomes, In A Certain Time, Hatred Of Society, Then Hatred Of The Human Race, And Then Hatred Of Creation, And Reveals Itself By A Vague And Incessant Desire To Injure Some Living Being, It Matters Not Who.

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.

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)

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

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

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

Be Happy Without Picking Flaws.

Philosophy Should Be An Energy; It Should Find Its Aim And Its Effect In The Amelioration Of Mankind.

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.

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.

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.

To Study In Paris Is To Be Born In Paris!

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

The Beautiful Has But One Type, The Ugly Has A Thousand.

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

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

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

Genius: The Superhuman In Man.

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

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.

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

God Knows Better Than We Do What We Need.

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.

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

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

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.

Sublime Upon Sublime Scarcely Presents A Contrast, And We Need A Little Rest From Everything, Even The Beautiful.

No One Knows Like A Woman How To Say Things Which Are At Once Gentle And Deep.

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

If I Speak, I Am Condemned. If I Stay Silent, I Am Damned!

Every Bird Which Flies Has The Thread Of The Infinite In Its Claw. Germination Includes The Hatching Of A Meteor And The Tap Of A Swallow's Bill Breaking The Egg, And It Leads Forward The Birth Of An Earth-worm And The Advent Of Socrates.

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.

A Benevolent Malefactor, Merciful, Gentle, Helpful, Clement, A Convict, Returning Good For Evil, Giving Back Pardon For Hatred, Preferring Pity To Vengeance, Preferring To Ruin Himself Rather Than To Ruin His Enemy, Saving Him Who Had Smitten Him, Kneeling On The Heights Of Virtue, More Nearly Akin To An Angel Than To A Man. Javert Was Constrained To Admit To Himself That This Monster Existed. Things Could Not Go On In This Manner.

The Real, Native South Seas Food Is Lousy. You Can't Eat It.

...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.

Even The Darkest Night Will End And The Sun Will Rise.

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

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

Nothing Is So Stifling As Symmetry. Symmetry Is Boredom, The Quintessence Of Mourning. Despair Yawns. There Is Something More Terrible Than A Hell Of Suffering - A Hell Of Boredom.

In The Relations Of Man With The Animals, With The Flowers, With All The Objects Of Creation, There Is A Whole Great Ethic, Scarcely Perceived As Yet, Which Will At Length Break Through Into The Light, And Which Will Be The Corollary And The Complement To Human Ethics.

One Of The Magnanimities Of Woman Is To Yield.

A Republic May Be Called The Climate Of Civilization.

What Would Be Ugly In A Garden Constitutes Beauty In A Mountain.

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?

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

The Wise Man Does Not Grow Old, But Ripens.

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

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

The Mother...swinging The Children By Pulling On A Length Of String, While At The Same Time She Kept And Eye On Them With That Protective Watchfulness, Half Animal, Half Angelic, Which Is The Quality Of Motherhood.

Melancholy Is The Happiness Of Being Sad.

Pleasure And Happiness

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

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.

The Greatest Happiness Of Life Is The Conviction That We Are Loved; Loved For Ourselves, Or Rather, Loved In Spite Of Ourselves.

Who Among Us Has Not Sought Peace In A Song?

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.

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

Jean Prouvaire Was Timid Only In Repose. Once Excited, He Burst Forth, A Sort Of Mirth Accentuated His Enthusiasm, And He Was At Once Both Laughing And Lyric.

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.

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.

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

The Flesh Is The Upper Surface Of The Unknown.

Revolution Is The Larva Of Civilization.

There Are No Rules For Felicity.

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

We Shall Not Attempt To Give The Reader An Idea Of That Tetrahedron Nose-that Horse-shoe Mouth-that Small Left Eye Over-shadowed By A Red Bushy Brow, While The Right Eye Disappeared Entirely Under An Enormous Wart-of Those Straggling Teeth With Breaches Here And There Like The Battlements Of A Fortress-of That Horny Lip, Over Which One Of Those Teeth Projected Like The Tusk Of An Elephant-of That Forked Chin-and, Above All, Of The Expression Diffused Over The Whole-that Mixture Of Malice, Astonishment, And Melancholy. Let The Reader, If He Can, Figure To Himself This Combination.

In Joined Hands There Is Still Some Token Of Hope, In The Clenched Fist None.

Love Resembles A Tree: It Bends Under Its Own Weight, Deeply Rooted In Our Being And Sometimes Turns Green In The Ruins Of A Heart.

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

If I Were Jesus Christ, I Would Save Judas.

When Grace Is Joined With Wrinkles, It Is Adorable. There Is An Unspeakable Dawn In Happy Old Age.

Positive Thinking

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

The Saints Were His Friends, And Blessed Him; The Monsters Were His Friends, And Guarded Him.

Love Is Reducing The Universe To One Being.

France Is Great Because She Is France.

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

What Is History? An Echo Of The Past In The Future; A Reflex From The Future On The Past.

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!

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.

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.

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

How Frightened Hypocrisy Hastens To Defend Itself.

Do You Hear The People Sing? Singing A Song Of Angry Men

Virtue Has A Veil, Vice A Mask.

Often The Losing Of A Battle Leads To The Winning Of Progress. Less Glory But Greater Liberty: The Drum Is Silent And The Voices Of Reason Can Be Heard.

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

The Owl Goes Not Into The Nest Of The Lark.

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

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

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

Women Are More Credulous Than Men.

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

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

The Sewer Is The Conscience Of The City.

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

Initiative Is Doing The Right Thing Without Being Told.

Follow Your Heart

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

If The Infinite Had No Me, Then Me Would Be Its Limit. It Would Not Be The Infinite, Therefore It Would Not Be.

No Doubt It Was Necessary To Civilize Man In Relation To Man. That Work Is Already Advanced And Is Making Progress Every Day. But Man Must Be Civilized Also In Relation To Nature.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The True Artist Can Only Labor Con Amore.

When People Look Back At Their Childhood Or Youth, Their Wistfulness Comes From The Memory, Not Of What Their Lives Had Been In Those Years, But Of What Life Had Then Promised To Be. The Expectation Of Some Indefinable Splendor, Of The Unusual, The Exciting, The Great Is An Attribute Of Youth And The Process Of Aging Is The Process Of That Expectations' Gradual Extinction. One Does Not Have To Let It Happen. But That Fire Dies For Lack Of Fuel, Under The Gray Weight Of Disappointments.

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.

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.

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

So Long As Ignorance And Poverty Exist On Earth, Books Of The Nature Of Les Miserables Cannot Fail To Be Of Use.

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.

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.

The Future Has Many Names: For The Weak, It Means The Unattainable. For The Fearful, It Means The Unknown. For The Courageous, It Means Opportunity.

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

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

When Love Has Fused And Mingled Two Beings In A Sacred And Angelic Unity, The Secret Of Life Has Been Discovered So Far As They Are Concerned; They Are No Longer Anything More Than The Two Boundaries Of The Same Destiny; They Are No Longer Anything But The Two Wings Of The Same Spirit. Love, Soar.

Sleep Comes More Easily Than It Returns.

There Are Souls Which, Crab-like, Crawl Continually Toward Darkness, Going Back In Life Rather Than Advancing In It, Using What Experience They Have To Increase Their Deformity, Growing Worse Without Ceasing, And Becoming Steeped More And More Thoroughly In An Intensifying Wickedness.

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

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.

If You Wish To Understand What Revolution Is, Call It Progress; And If You Wish To Understand What Progress Is, Call It Tomorrow.

To Live A Life Which Is A Perpetual Falsehood Is To Suffer Unknown Tortures.

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

When Two Souls Have Finally Found Each Other, There Is Established Between Them A Union Which Begins On Earth And Continues Forever In Heaven.

The Ox Suffers, The Cart Complains.

Happiness Wishes Everybody Happy.

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

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

The Sadness Which Reigned Everywhere Was But An Excuse For Unfailing Kindness.

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?

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

Does Not Beauty Confer A Benefit Upon Us, Even By The Simple Fact Of Being Beautiful?

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

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.

God Is Behind Everything, But Everything Hides God.

Joie Est Mon Caractere, C'est La Faute A Voltaire; Misere Est Mon Trousseau C'est La Faute A Rousseau. [joy Is My Character, 'tis The Fault Of Voltaire; Misery Is My Trousseau 'tis The Fault Of Rousseau.] - Gavroche

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

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

Justice Has Its Anger, My Lord Bishop, And The Wrath Of Justice Is An Element Of Progress. Whatever Else May Be Said Of It, The French Revolution Was The Greatest Step Forward By Mankind Since The Coming Of Christ. It Was Unfinished, I Agree, But Still It Was Sublime. It Released The Untapped Springs Of Society; It Softened Hearts, Appeased, Tranquilized, Enlightened, And Set Flowing Through The World The Tides Of Civilization. It Was Good. The French Revolution Was The Anointing Of Humanity.

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

Press On! A Better Fate Awaits Thee.

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!

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

When A Woman Is Talking To You, Listen To What She Says With Her Eyes.

Morality Is Truth In Full Bloom.

True Thinkers Are Characterized By A Blending Of Clearness And Mystery.

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

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?

Love Is Like A Tree, It Grows Of Its Own Accord, It Puts Down Deep Roots Into Our Whole Being.

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

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

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

Foppery Is The Egotism Of Clothes.

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

A Bit Of Mould Is A Pleiad Of Flowers; A Nebula Is An Ant-hill Of Stars.

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

Do Not Ask The Name Of The Person Who Seeks A Bed For The Night. He Who Is Reluctant To Give His Name Is The One Who Most Needs Shelter.

France Lost A Great Novel Last Night.

Word Which The Finger Of God Has Written On The Brow Of Every Man — Hope!

He Saw Before Him Two Roads, Both Equally Straight ; But He Saw Two; And That Terrified Him — Him, Who Had Never In His Life Known But One Straight Line. And, Bitter Anguish, These Two Roads Were Contradictory.

No Matter Who You Are, The Thought Of So Much Suffering And Degradation Must Cause You To Shudder At The Sight Of A Veil Or Cassock, Those Two Shrouds Of Human Invention.

He Who Despairs Is Wrong.

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.

By Making Himself A Priest Made Himself A Demon.

A Day Will Come When There Will Be No Battlefields, But Markets Opening To Commerce And Minds Opening To Ideas.

Those Who Always Pray Are Necessary To Those Who Never Pray.

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.

To Sum Up All, Let It Be Known That Science And Religion Are Two Identical Words. The Learned Do Not Suspect This, No More Do The Religious. These Two Words Express The Two Sides Of The Same Fact, Which Is The Infinite. Religion-science, This Is The Future Of The Human Mind.

Oh! Everything I Loved!

Wisdom Is A Sacred Communion.

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.

Music Expresses That Which Cannot Be Said And On Which It Is Impossible To Be Silent.

You Preserve Your Shame But You Kill Your Glory.

Habit Is The Nursery Of Errors.

Between The Government Which Does Evil And The People Who Accept It - There Is A Certain Shameful Solidarity.

Loving Is Half Of Believing.

To Love Another Person Is To See The Face Of God.

Happy Valentines Day

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Optical Illusions

Whatever Causes Night In Our Souls May Leave Stars.

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