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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.

-Victor Hugo

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The Merciful Precepts Of

Victor Hugo

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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.

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

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.

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.

In The Opera We Call Love, The Libretto Is Almost Nothing.

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

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

What Makes Night Within Us May Leave Stars.

Nothing Makes A Man So Adventurous As An Empty Pocket.

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.

The Thirst For The Infinite Proves Infinity.

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.

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

Never Had The Sky Been More Studded With Stars And More Charming, The Trees More Trembling, The Odor Of The Grass More Penetrating; Never Had The Birds Fallen Asleep Among The Leaves With A Sweeter Noise; Never Had All The Harmonies Of Universal Serenity Responded More Thoroughly To The Inward Music Of Love; Never Had Marius Been More Captivated, More Happy, More Ecstatic.

Dying Is Nothing. What's Terrible Is Not To Live.

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.

It Is Not Enough To Be Happy, One Must Be Content.

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

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

Are You Afraid Of The Good You Might Do?

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

At That Moment Of Love, A Moment When Passion Is Absolutely Silent Under Omnipotence Of Ecstasy, Marius, Pure Seraphic Marius, Would Have Been More Capable Of Visiting A Woman Of The Streets Than Of Raising Cosette’s Dress Above The Ankle. Once On A Moonlit Night, Cosette Stopped To Pick Up Something From The Ground, Her Dress Loosened And Revealed The Swelling Of Her Breasts. Marius Averted His Eyes.

Morality Is Truth In Full Bloom.

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.

Emergencies Have Always Been Necessary To Progress. It Was Darkness Which Produced The Lamp. It Was Fog That Produced The Compass. It Was Hunger That Drove Us To Exploration. And It Took A Depression To Teach Us The Real Value Of A Job.

Men Hate Those To Whom They Have To Lie.

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

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

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.

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

Friendship Exists Outside Our Modern Economy Of Scarcity... It's Not About Apportioning Vanishing Resources Of Time And Energy. Friendship Is A Blessed Relic Of The Ancient Economy Of The Gift, And The Time Freely Given To People Dear To You Actually Creates Magical Abundance.

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

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

What A Gloomy Thing, Not To Know The Address Of One's Soul.

The Truth Of An Upright Man Must Be Accepted On His Own Terms. Moreover, Since Natures Vary, We Must Agree That All The Beauties Of Human Excellence May Be Fostered By Faiths That We Do Not Share.

There Are Many Tongues To Talk, And But Few Heads To Think.

And So, Being In Heaven, It Was Easy For Him To Lose Sight Of Earth.

Happiness Wishes Everybody Happy.

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

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

Ideas Can No More Flow Backward Than Can A River.

What's Our Baggage? Only Vows, Happiness, And All Our Care, And The Flower That Sweetly Shows Nestling Lightly In Your Hair.

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

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.

Equality Does Not Mean That All Plants Must Grow To The Same Height - A Society Of Tall Grass And Dwarf Trees, A Jostle Of Conflicting Jealousies. It Means, In Civic Terms, An Equal Outlet For All Talents; In Political Terms, That All Votes Will Carry The Same Weight; And In Religious Terms That All Beliefs Will Enjoy Equal Rights.

Every Man Is A Book In Which God Himself Writes.

Superstitions, Bigotries, Hypocrisies, Prejudices, These Phantoms, Phantoms Though They Be, Cling To Life; They Have Teeth And Nails In Their Shadowy Substance, And We Must Grapple With Them Individually And Make War On Them Without Truce; For It Is One Of Humanity's Inevitabilities To Be Condemned To Eternal Struggle With Phantoms.

Perseverance, Secret Of All Triumphs.

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.

Try As You Will, You Cannot Annihilate That Eternal Relic Of The Human Heart, Love.

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

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

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

Great Perils Have This Beauty, That They Bring To Light The Fraternity Of Strangers.

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.

A Wretched Woman Is More Unfortunate Than A Wretched Man.

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

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

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

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.

Reaction - A Boat Which Is Going Against The Current But Which Does Not Prevent The River From Flowing On.

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

We Shall Look On Crime As A Disease, And Its Physicians Shall Displace The Judges, Its Hospitals Displace The Galleys. Liberty And Health Shall Be Alike. We Shall Pour Balm And Oil Where We Formerly Applied Iron And Fire; Evil Will Be Treated In Charity, Instead Of In Anger. This Change Will Be Simple And Sublime.

Joy Is The Reflex Of Terror.

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

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

He Loved Books; Books Are Cold But Safe Friends.

Marius Was Of The Temperament That Sinks Into Grief And Remains There; Cosette Was Of The Sort That Plunges In And Comes Out Again.

Puns Are The Droppings Of Soaring Wits.

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

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

To Give Thanks In Solitude Is Enough. Thanksgiving Has Wings And Goes Where It Must Go. Your Prayer Knows Much More About It Than You Do.

Whatever Causes Night In Our Souls May Leave Stars.

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.

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

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.

We Are Not Loved By Our Friends For What We Are; Rather, We Are Loved In Spite Of What We Are.

No One Ever Keeps A Secret So Well As A Child.

Keeping Secrets

Night And The Day, When United, Bring Forth The Beautiful Light.

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

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

I Am Not In The World To Care For My Life, But For Souls.

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

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

The Sunshine Was Delightful, The Foliage Gently Astir, More From The Activity Of Birds Than From The Breeze. One Gallant Little Bird, Doubtless Lovelorn, Was Singing His Heart Out At The Top Of A Tall Tree.

There Shall Be No Slavery Of The Mind.

Here We Stop. Upon The Threshold Of Wedding Nights Stands An Angel Smiling, His Finger On His Lip.

A Little Girl Without A Doll Is Almost As Unhappy, And Quite As Impossible, As A Woman Without Children." From Chapter Viii Of Les Miserables

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.

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?

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.

We Do Not Comprehend Everything, But We Insult Nothing.

To Love Or Have Loved, That Is Enough. Ask Nothing Further. There Is No Other Pearl To Be Found In The Dark Folds Of Life.

Upon The First Goblet He Read This Inscription, Monkey Wine; Upon The Second, Lion Wine; Upon The Third, Sheep Wine; Upon The Fourth, Swine Wine. These Four Inscriptions Expressed The Four Descending Degrees Of Drunkenness: The First, That Which Enlivens; The Second, That Which Irritates; The Third, That Which Stupefies; Finally The Last, That Which Brutalizes.

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

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

These Greek Capitals, Black With Age, And Quite Deeply Graven In The Stone, With I Know Not What Signs Peculiar To Gothic Calligraphy Imprinted Upon Their Forms And Upon Their Attitudes, As Though With The Purpose Of Revealing That It Had Been A Hand Of The Middle Ages Which Had Inscribed Them There, And Especially The Fatal And Melancholy Meaning Contained In Them, Struck The Author Deeply.

Despotism Is A Long Crime.

The Little People Must Be Sacred To The Big Ones, And It Is From The Rights Of The Weak That The Duty Of The Strong Is Comprised.

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.

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'.

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

Science Says The First Word On Everything, And The Last Word On Nothing.

In This World, Which Is So Plainly The Antechamber Of Another, There Are No Happy Men. The True Division Of Humanity Is Between Those Who Live In Light And Those Who Live In Darkness. Our Aim Must Be To Diminish The Number Of The Latter And Increase The Number Of The Former. That Is Why We Demand Education And Knowledge.

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

Too Much Improvisation Leaves The Mind Stupidly Void.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Winter Is On My Head, But Eternal Spring Is In My Heart.

So A Voice In The Mountain Is Enough To Let Loose An Avalanche. A Word Too Much May Be Followed By A Caving In. If The Word Had Not Been Spoken, It Would Not Have Happened.

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

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?

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

History Has Its Truth; And So Has Legend Hers.

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

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

Intelligence Is The Wife, Imagination Is The Mistress, Memory Is The Servant.

There Are Things Stronger Than The Strongest Man.

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

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.

The Soul Helps The Body, And At Certain Moments Raises It. It Is The Only Bird That Sustains Its Cage.

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

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

The True Artist Can Only Labor Con Amore.

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.

The Wise Man Does Not Grow Old, But Ripens.

...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.

Whom Man Kills, Him God Restoreth To Life.

Let Us Have Compassion For Those Under Chastisement. Alas, Who Are We Ourselves? Who Am I And Who Are You? Whence Do We Come And Is It Quite Certain That We Did Nothing Before We Were Born? This Earth Is Not Without Some Resemblance To A Gaol. Who Knows But That Man Is A Victim Of Divine Justice? Look Closely At Life. It Is So Constituted That One Senses Punishment Everywhere.

Curiosity Is One Of The Forms Of Feminine Bravery.

Solitude Either Develops The Mental Power, Or Renders Men Dull And Vicious.

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!

There Is One Spectacle Grander Than The Sea, That Is The Sky.

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

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

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

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

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.

Many Great Actions Are Committed In Small Struggles.

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

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

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

When We Are At The End Of Life, To Die Means To Go Away; When We Are At The Beginning, To Go Away Means To Die.

Those Who Live Are Those Who Fight.

Foppery Is The Egotism Of Clothes.

Sire, You Are Looking At A Plain Man, And I Am Looking At A Great Man. Each Of Us May Benefit.

She Was A Lovely Blonde, With Fine Teeth. She Had Gold And Pearls For Her Dowry; But Her Gold Was On Her Head, And Her Pearls Were In Her Mouth.

To Contemplate Is To Look At Shadows.

[t]he Small Is Great, The Great Is Small; All Is In Equilibrium In Necessity.

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

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

The Word Is The Verb, And The Verb Is God.

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

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

For Sight Is Woman-like And Shuns The Old.

The Aim Of Art Is Almost Divine: To Bring To Life Again If It Is Writing History, To Create If It Is Writing Poetry.

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

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.

He Had Not Yet Lived Long Enough To Have Discovered That Nothing Is More Close At Hand Then The Impossible, And That What Must Be Looked For Is Always The Unforeseen.

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

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.

Nothing Is More Imminent Than The Impossible . . . What We Must Always Foresee Is The Unforeseen.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Poetry Contains Philosophy As The Soul Contains Reason.

Curiosity Is Gluttony. To See Is To Devour.

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

Enthusiasm Is The Fever Of Reason.

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.

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

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.

As With Stomachs, We Should Pity Minds That Do Not Eat.

Though One Believes In Nothing, There Are Moments In Life When One Accepts The Religion Of The Temple Nearest At Hand.

Why Worry About What Threatens Our Heads Or Purses? Let Us Think Instead Of What Threatens Our Souls.

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.

From The Oyster To The Eagle, From The Swine To The Tiger, All Animals Are To Be Found In Men And Each Of Them Exists In Some Man, Sometimes Several At The Time. Animals Are Nothing But The Portrayal Of Our Virtues And Vices Made Manifest To Our Eyes, The Visible Reflections Of Our Souls. God Displays Them To Us To Give Us Food For Thought.

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.

The Learned Man Knows That He Is Ignorant.

Stupidity Talks, Vanity Acts.

For The Rest, He Was The Same To All Men, The Fashionable World And The Ordinary People. He Judged Nothing In Haste, Or Without Taking Account Of The Cirumstances. He Said, 'let Me See How The Fault Arose.

There Are Many Lovely Women, But No Perfect Ones.

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

He Is The Best Gentleman That Is The Son Of His Own Deserts, And Not The Degenerated Heir Of Another's Virtue.

...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.

A Man Is Not Idle Because He Is Absorbed In Thought. There Is A Visible Labor And There Is An Invisible Labor.

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.

Initiative Is Doing The Right Thing Without Being Told.

Follow Your Heart

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

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

If You Are Stone, Be Magnetic; If A Plant, Be Sensitive; But If You Are Human Be Love.

Nothing Can Be More Depressing Than To Expose, Naked To The Light Of Thought, The Hideous Growth Of Argot. Indeed It Is Like A Sort Of Repellent Animal Intended To Dwell In Darkness Which Has Been Dragged Out Of Its Cloaca. One Seems To See A Horned And Living Creature Viciously Struggling To Be Restored To The Place Where It Belongs. One Word Is Like A Claw, Another Like A Sightless And Bleeding Eye; And There Are Phrases Which Clutch Like The Pincers Of A Crab. And All Of It Is Alive With The Hideous Vitality Of Things That Have Organized Themselves Amid Disorganization.

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.

Scepticism, That Dry Caries Of The Intelligence.

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

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