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

-Victor Hugo

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There Are No Trifles

Victor Hugo

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

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

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

Melancholy Is The Happiness Of Being Sad.

Pleasure And Happiness

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.

A Thousand Men Enslaved Fear One Beast Free.

Almost All Our Desires, When Examined, Contain Something Too Shameful To Reveal.

The World Of Sleep Has An Existence Of Its Own.

People Do Not Read Stupidities With Impunity.

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.

There Have Been In This Century Only One Great Man And One Great Thing: Napoleon And Liberty. For Want Of The Great Man, Let Us Have The Great Thing.

Without Vanity, Without Coquetry, Without Curiosity, In A Word, Without The Fall, Woman Would Not Be Woman. Much Of Her Grace Is In Her Frailty.

The Drama Is Complete Poetry. The Ode And The Epic Contain It Only In Germ; It Contains Both Of Them In A State Of High Development, And Epitomizes Both.

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

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

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.

A Man Trying To Escape Never Thinks Himself Sufficiently Concealed.

As The Purse Is Emptied, The Heart Is Filled.

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.

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.

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

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

To Divinise Is Human, To Humanise Is Divine.

Hypocrisy Is Nothing, In Fact, But A Horrible Hopefulness.

Good Actions Are The Invisible Hinges On The Doors Of Heaven.

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

My Tastes Are Aristocratic, My Actions Democratic.

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.

How Frightened Hypocrisy Hastens To Defend Itself.

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.

When God Desires To Destroy A Thing, He Entrusts Its Destruction To The Thing Itself. Every Bad Institution Of This World Ends By Suicide.

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.

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

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

Great Grief Is A Divine And Terrible Radiance Which Transfigures The Wretched.

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.

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.

Wisdom And Eloquence Are Not Always United.

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.

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

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.

First Problem. To Produce Wealth. Second Problem. To Distribute It.

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.

The Owl Goes Not Into The Nest Of The Lark.

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

At The Shrine Of Friendship Never Say Die, Let The Wine Of Friendship Never Run Dry

There Is No Supernatural, There Is Only Nature. Nature Alone Exists And Contains All. All Is. There Is The Part Of Nature That We Perceive, And The Part Of Nature That We Do Not Perceive. ... If You Abandon These Facts, Beware; Charlatans Will Light Upon Them, Also The Imbecile. There Is No Mean: Science, Or Ignorance. If Science Does Not Want These Facts, Ignorance Will Take Them Up. You Have Refused To Enlarge Human Intelligence, You Augment Human Stupidity. When Laplace Withdraws Cagliostro Appears.

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

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

A Tempest Ceases, A Cyclone Passes Over, A Wind Dies Down, A Broken Mast Can Be Replaced, A Leak Can Be Stopped, A Fire Extinguished, But What Will Become Of This Enormous Brute Of Bronze?

Crime Is Redeemed By Remorse, But Not By A Blow Of The Axe Or Slipknot. Blood Has To Be Washed By Tears But Not By Blood.

Happiness Wishes Everybody Happy.

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

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

History Has Its Truth; And So Has Legend Hers.

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

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

A House Is Built Of Logs And Stone, Of Tiles And Posts And Piers; A Home Is Built Of Loving Deeds That Stand A Thousand Years.

Promise To Give Me A Kiss On My Brow When I Am Dead. --i Shall Feel It." She Dropped Her Head Again On Marius' Knees, And Her Eyelids Closed. He Thought The Poor Soul Had Departed. Eponine Remained Motionless. All At Once, At The Very Moment When Marius Fancied Her Asleep Forever, She Slowly Opened Her Eyes In Which Appeared The Sombre Profundity Of Death, And Said To Him In A Tone Whose Sweetness Seemed Already To Proceed From Another World:-- "and By The Way, Monsieur Marius, I Believe That I Was A Little Bit In Love With You.

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

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?

The Thirst For The Infinite Proves Infinity.

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.

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

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.

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

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

A Joyous Little Creature, So Beautiful, It Was As If A Gate Of Heaven Opened As She Came In.

There Are, As We Know, Powerful And Illustrious Atheists. At Bottom, Led Back To The Truth By Their Very Force, They Are Not Absolutely Sure That They Are Atheists; It Is With Them Only A Question Of Definition, And In Any Case, If They Do Not Believe In God, Being Great Minds, They Prove God.

Every Step Which The Intelligence Of Europe Has Taken Has Been In Spite Of The Clerical Party.

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

Everything Bows To Success, Even Grammar.

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.

There Is A Way Of Meeting Error While On The Road Of Truth.

M. Mabeuf’s Political Opinion Was A Passionate Fondness For Plants, And A Still Greater One For Books. He Had, Like Everybody Else, His Termination In Ist, Without Which Nobody Could Have Lived In Those Times, But He Was Neither A Royalist, Nor A Bonapartist, Nor A Chartist, Nor An Orleanist, Nor An Anarchist; He Was An Old-bookist.

Political Opinions

Revolutions Are Not Born Of Chance But Of Necessity.

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

There Exists, At The Bottom Of All Abasement And Misfortune, A Last Extreme Which Rebels And Joins Battle With The Forces Of Law And Respectability In A Desperate Struggle, Waged Partly By Cunning And Partly By Violence, At Once Sick And Ferocious, In Which It Attacks The Prevailing Social Order With The Pin-pricks Of Vice And The Hammer-blows Of Crime.

It Seemed To Be A Necessary Ritual That He Should Prepare Himself For Sleep By Meditating Under The Solemnity Of The Night Sky... A Mysterious Transaction Between The Infinity Of The Soul And The Infinity Of The Universe.

A Fixed Idea Ends In Madness Or Heroism.

Morality Is Truth In Full Bloom.

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.

What Dangers You Run, O Noble Souls! Often, You Give Your Heart, But We Take Only Your Body. Your Heart Is Left To You And You Look At It In The Shadows And Shudder.

You Say, "where Goest Thou?" I Cannot Tell, And Still Go On. But If The Way Be Straight I Cannot Go Amiss: Before Me Lies Dawn And The Day: The Night Behind Me: That Suffices Me: I Break The Bounds: I See, And Nothing More; Believe And Nothing Less. My Future Is Not One Of My Concerns.

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

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

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.

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

We Are For Religion Against The Religions.

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

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

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

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

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.

Nothing Discernible To The Eye Of The Spirit Is More Brilliant Or Obscure Than Man; Nothing Is More Formidable, Complex, Mysterious, And Infinite. There Is A Prospect Greater Than The Sea, And It Is The Sky; There Is A Prospect Greater Than The Sky, And It Is The Human Soul.

Wonderful Nature Has A Double Meaning, Which Dazzles Great Minds And Blinds Uncultivated Souls. When Man Is Ignorant, When The Desert Is Filled With Visions, The Darkness Of Solitude Is Added To The Darkness Of Intelligence; Hence, In Man, The Possibilities Of Perdition

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

There Is A Sacred Horror About Everything Grand. It Is Easy To Admire Mediocrity And Hills; But Whatever Is Too Lofty, A Genius As Well As A Mountain, An Assembly As Well As A Masterpiece, Seen Too Near, Is Appalling.

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

Where No Plan Is Laid, Where The Disposal Of Time Is Surrendered Merely To The Chance Of Incident, Chaos Will Soon Reign.

When Two Mouths, Made Sacred By Love, Draw Near To Each Other To Create, It Is Impossible, That Above That Ineffable Kiss There Should Not Be A Thrill In The Immense Mystery Of The Stars.

Liberation Is Not Deliverance.

Is It Not A Thing Divine To Have A Smile Which, None Know How, Has The Power To Lighten The Weight Of That Enormous Chain Which All The Living In Common Drag Behind Them?

Not Ill? No Truly, I Am Young, Healthful, And Strong; The Blood Flows Freely In My Veins; My Limbs Obey My Will; I Am Robust In Mind And Body, Constituted For A Long Life. Yes, All This Is True; And Yet, Nevertheless, I Have An Illness, A Fatal Illness,-an Illness Given By The Hand Of Man!

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.

Cheerfulness Is Like Money Well Expended In Charity; The More We Dispense Of It, The Greater Our Possession.

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." Nihilism Has No Substance. There Is No Such Thing As Nothingness, And Zero Does Not Exist. Everything Is Something. Nothing Is Nothing. Man Lives More By Affirmation Than By Bread.

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

There Are Fathers Who Do Not Love Their Children; There Is No Grandfather Who Does Not Adore His Grandson.

France Lost A Great Novel Last Night.

Such Is The Remorseless Progression Of Human Society, Shedding Lives And Souls As It Goes On Its Way. It Is An Ocean Into Which Men Sink Who Have Been Cast Out By The Law And Consigned, With Help Most Cruelly Withheld, To Moral Death. The Sea Is The Pitiless Social Darkness Into Which The Penal System Casts Those It Has Condemned, An Unfathomable Waste Of Misery. The Human Soul, Lost In Those Depths, May Become A Corpse. Who Shall Revive It?

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.

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

The Pupil Dilates In Darkness And In The End Finds Light, Just As The Soul Dilates In Misfortune And In The End Finds God.

The Persistence Of An All-absorbing Idea Is Terrible.

The Supreme Ordeal, Let Us Say Rather, The Only Ordeal, Is The Loss Of The Beloved Being.

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.

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.

Curiosity Is Gluttony. To See Is To Devour.

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

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

True Or False, That Which Is Said Of Men Often Occupies As Important A Place In Their Lives, And Above All In Their Destinies, As That Which They Do.

Civil War.... What Did The Words Mean? Was There Any Such Thing As "foreign War"? Was Not All Warfare Between Men Warfare Between Brothers?

Great Blunders Are Often Made, Like Large Ropes, Of A Multitude Of Fibres.

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 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.

Perseverance, Secret Of All Triumphs.

Dirt Has Been Shrewdly Termed "misplaced Material.

The Wise Man Does Not Grow Old, But Ripens.

A Library Implies An Act Of Faith.

For Sight Is Woman-like And Shuns The Old.

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.

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.

To See So Much Misery Everywhere, I Suspect That God Is Not Rich. He Keeps Up Appearances, It Is True, But I Feel The Pinch. He Gives A Revolution As A Merchant, Whose Credit Is Low, Gives A Ball.

The First Proof Of Charity In A Priest, And Especially A Bishop, Is Poverty.

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

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.

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.

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.

Monastic Incarceration Is Castration.

Genius: The Superhuman In Man.

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.

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

Dark Error's Other Hidden Side Is Truth.

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

Nature Has Made A Pebble And A Female. The Lapidary Makes The Diamond, And The Lover Makes The Woman.

To Contemplate Is To Look At Shadows.

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.

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

Art Moves. Hence Its Civilizing Power.

Promise To Give Me A Kiss On My Brow When I Am Dead.--i Shall Feel It.

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

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

There Is No Distress So Complete But That Even In The Most Critical Moments The Inexplicable Sunrise Of Hope Is Seen In Its Depths.

Critical Moments

To A Gargoyle On The Ramparts Of Notre Dame As Esmeralda Rides Off With Gringoire Quasimodo Says. "why Was I Not Made Of Stone Like Thee?

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

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.

The Book Which The Reader Now Holds In His Hands, From One End To The Other, As A Whole And In Its Details, Whatever Gaps, Exceptions, Or Weaknesses It May Contain, Treats Of The Advance From Evil To Good, From Injustice To Justice, From Falsity To Truth, From Darkness To Daylight, From Blind Appetite To Conscience, From Decay To Life, From Bestiality To Duty, From Hell To Heaven, From Limbo To God. Matter Itself Is The Starting-point, And The Point Of Arrival Is The Soul. Hydra At The Beginning, An Angel At The End.

Oh! Everything I Loved!

Nobody Loves The Light Like The Blind Man.

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.

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.

A Sewer Is A Cynic. It Tells All.

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 Says The Law? You Will Not Kill. How Does It Say It? By Killing!

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

My Day's Work Will Begin Again The Next Morning. The Tomb Is Not A Blind Alley.

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.

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.

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

Life Is The Flower For Which Love Is The Honey.

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.

Our Life Dreams The Utopia. Our Death Achieves The Ideal.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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!

One Of The Magnanimities Of Woman Is To Yield.

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

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

O Darkness, The Sky Is A Gloomy Precinct Whose Door You Close, And Whose Key The Soul Owns; And Night Divides Itself In Half, Being Diabolical And Holy, Between Ilis, The Black Angel, And Christ, The Starry Human Being.

‎"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.

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.

Great Buildings, Like Great Mountains, Are The Work Of Centuries.

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

It Is Often Necessary To Know How To Obey A Woman In Order Sometimes To Have The Right To Command Her.

Are You Afraid Of The Good You Might Do?

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

To Know, To Think, To Dream. That Is Everything.

The Wise Man Is He Who Knows When And How To Stop

"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."

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

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

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

Do You Know What Friendship Is?' He Asked. 'yes,' Replied The Gypsy; 'it Is To Be Brother And Sister; Two Souls Which Touch Without Mingling, Two Fingers On One Hand.' 'and Love?' Pursued Gringoire. 'oh! Love!' Said She, And Her Voice Trembled, And Her Eye Beamed. 'that Is To Be Two And To Be But One. A Man And A Woman Mingled Into One Angel. It Is Heaven.

...mothers Are Often Fondest Of The Child Which Has Caused Them The Greatest Pain.

Love Is A Fault; So Be It.

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.

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

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