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

-Victor Hugo

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There Is No Distress

Victor Hugo

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

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Critical Moments

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We Are On The Side Of Religion As Opposed To Religions, And We Are Among Those Who Believe In The Wretched Inadequacy Of Sermons And The Sublimity Of Prayer.

Dirt Has Been Shrewdly Termed "misplaced Material.

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.

It Is By Suffering That Human Beings Become Angels.

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.

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

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

Every Day Has Its Great Grief Or Its Small Anxiety. ... One Cloud Is Dispelled, Another Forms. There Is Hardly One Day In A Hundred Of Real Joy And Bright Sunshine.

Teach The Ignorant As Much As You Can; Society Is Culpable In Not Providing A Free Education For All And It Must Answer For The Night Which It Produces. If The Soul Is Left In Darkness Sins Will Be Committed. The Guilty One Is Not He Who Commits The Sin, But He Who Causes The Darkness.

Reason Is Intelligence Taking Exercise. Imagination Is Intelligence With An Erection.

Winter Is On My Head, But Eternal Spring Is In My Heart. The Nearer I Approach The End, The Plainer I Hear Around Me The Immortal Symphonies Of The Worlds Which Invite Me. . . . For Half A Century I Have Been Writing Thoughts In Prose, Verse, History, Drama, Romance, Tradition, Satire, Ode, And Song. I Have Tried Them All, But I Feel I Have Not Said A Thousandth Part Of That Which Is Within Me. When I Go Down To The Grave, I Can Say "i Have Finished My Day's Work," But I Cannot Say "i Have Finished My Life's Work."

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

The Onward March Of The Human Race Requires That The Heights Around It Constantly Blaze With Noble Lessons Of Courage. Deeds Of Daring Dazzle History And Form One Of Man's Guiding Lights.

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.

To Err Is Human. To Loaf Is Parisian.

The Smaller It Is The Heart, More Hatred Houses.

To Be A Saint Is The Exception; To Be A Just Person Is The Rule. Err, Stumble, Commit Sin, But Be One Of The Just.

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.

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.

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

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

To Destroy Abuses Is Not Enough; Habits Must Also Be Changed. The Windmill Has Gone, But The Wind Is Still There." ~old Man G--- To Monseigneur Bienvenu Myriel

The Tomb Is Not A Blind Alley: It Is A Thoroughfare. It Closes On The Twilight. It Opens On The Dawn.

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

The Flesh Is The Upper Surface Of The Unknown.

To Commit The Least Possible Sin Is The Law For Man. To Live Without Sin Is The Dream Of An Angel. Everything Terrestrial Is Subject To Sin. Sin Is A Gravitation.

Let Us Admit, Without Bitterness, That The Individual Has His Distinct Interests And Can, Without Felony, Stipulate For Those Interests And Defend Them. The Present Has Its Pardonable Amount Of Egotism; Momentary Life Has Its Claims, And Cannot Be Expected To Sacrifice Itself Incessantly To The Future. The Generation Which Is In Its Turn Passing Over The Earth Is Not Forced To Abridge Its Life For The Sake Of The Generations, Its Equals After All, Whose Turn Shall Come Later On.

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

The Wise Man Does Not Grow Old, But Ripens.

Forty Is The Old Age Of Youth; Fifty The Youth Of Old Age.

Taste Is The Common Sense Of Genius.

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

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

Not Seeing People Allows You To Think Of Them As Perfect In All Kinds Of Ways.

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.

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

Ideas Can No More Flow Backward Than Can A River.

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

The Power Of A Glance Has Been So Much Abused In Love Stories, That It Has Come To Be Disbelieved In. Few People Dare Now To Say That Two Beings Have Fallen In Love Because They Have Looked At Each Other. Yet It Is In This Way That Love Begins, And In This Way Only.

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

God Will Bless You,' Said He, 'you Are An Angel Since You Take Care Of The Flowers.' 'no,' She Replied. 'i Am The Devil, But That's All The Same To Me.

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

Desiring Always To Be In Mourning, He Clothed Himself With Night.

I Had A Dream My Life Would Be Different From This Hell I Am Living, So Different From What It Seemed. Now Life Has Killed The Dream I Dreamed.

Reality In Strong Doses Frightens.

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

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.

Humanity Is Our Common Lot. All Men Are Made Of The Same Clay. There Is No Difference, At Least Here On Earth, In The Fate Assigned To Us. We Come Of The Same Void, Inhabit The Same Flesh, Are Dissolved In The Same Ashes. But Ignorance Infecting The Human Substance Turns It Black, And That Incurable Blackness, Gaining Possession Of The Soul, Becomes Evil.

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

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.

Sometimes He Used A Spade In His Garden, And Sometimes He Read And Wrote. He Had But One Name For These Two Kinds Of Labor; He Called Them Gardening. ‘the Spirit Is A Garden,’ Said He

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.'

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.

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

Do You Hear The People Sing Lost In The Valley Of The Night? It Is The Music Of A People Who Are Climbing To The Light. For The Wretched Of The Earth There Is A Flame That Never Dies. Even The Darkest Night Will End And The Sun Will Rise.

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

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.

Art Needs No Spur Beyond Itself.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

The Peasants Of The Asturias Believe That In Every Litter Of Wolves There Is One Pup That Is Killed By The Mother For Fear That On Growing Up It Would Devour The Other Little Ones.

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

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

In Shakespeare The Birds Sing, The Bushes Are Clothed With Green, Hearts Love, Souls Suffer, The Cloud Wanders, It Is Hot, It Is Cold, Night Falls, Time Passes, Forests And Multitudes Speak, The Vast Eternal Dream Hovers Over All. Sap And Blood, All Forms Of The Multiple Reality, Actions And Ideas, Man And Humanity, The Living And The Life, Solitudes, Cities, Religions, Diamonds And Pearls, Dung-hills And Charnelhouses, The Ebb And Flow Of Beings, The Steps Of Comers And Goers, All, All Are On Shakespeare And In Shakespeare.

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.

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

She Had Had Sweet Dreams, Which Possibly Arose From The Fact That Her Little Bed Was Very White.

Love, Thine Is The Future. Death, I Use Thee, But I Hate Thee. Citizens, There Shall Be In The Future Neither Darkness Nor Thunderbolts; Neither Ferocious Ignorance Nor Blood For Blood.

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.

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

Wisdom Is A Sacred Communion.

How Frightened Hypocrisy Hastens To Defend Itself.

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

The Author Creates A Book And The People Accept Or Not Accept It. The Creator Of A Book Is An Author And The Creator Of It`s Fate Are People.

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

God Manifests Himself To Us In The First Degree Through The Life Of The Universe, And In The Second Degree Through The Thought Of Man. The Second Manifestation Is Not Less Holy Than The First. The First Is Named Nature, The Second Is Named Art.

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.

I Am In The Night. There Is A Being Who Has Gone Away And Carried The Heavens With Her. Oh! To Be Laid Side By Side In The Same Tomb, Hand Clasped In Hand, And From Time To Time, In The Darkness, To Caress A Finger Gently, That Would Suffice For My Eternity.

Foppery Is The Egotism Of Clothes.

Nothing Can Be Sadder Or More Profound Than To See A Thousand Things For The First And Last Time. To Journey Is To Be Born And Die Each Minute...all The Elements Of Life Are In Constant Flight From Us, With Darkness And Clarity Intermingled, The Vision And The Eclipse; We Look And Hasten, Reaching Out Our Hands To Clutch; Every Happening Is A Bend In The Road...and Suddenly We Have Grown Old. We Have A Sense Of Shock And Gathering Darkness; Ahead Is A Black Doorway; The Life That Bore Us Is A Flagging Horse, And A Veiled Stranger Is Waiting In The Shadows To Unharness Us.

Man Lives More By Affirmation Than By Bread.

Revery, Which Is Thought In Its Nebulous State, Borders Closely Upon The Land Of Sleep, By Which It Is Bounded As By A Natural Frontier.

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

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

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

We Say That Slavery Has Vanished From European Civilization, But This Is Not True. Slavery Still Exists, But Now It Applies Only To Women And Its Name Is Prostitution.

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

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

Melancholy Is The Happiness Of Being Sad.

Pleasure And Happiness

If A Writer Wrote Merely For His Time, I Would Have To Break My Pen And Throw It Away.

He Loved Books; Books Are Cold But Safe Friends.

As The Purse Is Emptied, The Heart Is Filled.

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

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

Every Bad Institution Of This World Ends By Suicide.

Too Much Improvisation Leaves The Mind Stupidly Void.

Change Your Opinions, Keep To Your Principles; Change Your Leaves, Keep Intact Your Roots.

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

Our Mind Is Enriched By What We Receive, Our Heart By What We Give.

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.

I'd Rather Be Hissed At For A Good Verse, Than Applauded For A Bad One.

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.

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

Was It Possible That Napoleon Should Win The Battle Of Waterloo? We Answer, No! Why? Because Of Wellington? Because Of Blucher? No! Because Of God! For Bonaparte To Conquer At Waterloo Was Not The Law Of The Nineteenth Century. It Was Time That This Vast Man Should Fall. He Had Been Impeached Before The Infinite! He Had Vexed God! Waterloo Was Not A Battle. It Was The Change Of Front Of The Universe!

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

There Are No Rules For Felicity.

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

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.

To Contemplate Is To Look At Shadows.

Another Story Must Begin!

There Is Always More Misery Among The Lower Classes Than There Is Humanity In The Higher.

A Day Will Come When All Nations On Our Continent Will Form A European Brotherhood... A Day Will Come When We Shall See... The United States Of America And The United States Of Europe Face To Face, Reaching Out For Each Other Across The Seas.

For Sight Is Woman-like And Shuns The Old.

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

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

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.

Labor Is Life; Thought Is Light.

Thoughts On Life

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 Are People Who Observe The Rules Of Honor As One Observes The Stars, From A Great Distance.

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 Soul In The Darkness Sins, But The Real Sinner Is He Who Caused The Darkness.

At The Moment When Her Eyes Closed, When All Feeling Vanished In Her, She Thought That She Felt A Touch Of Fire Imprinted On Her Lips, A Kiss More Burning Than The Red-hot Iron Of The Executioner.

Have No Fear Of Robbers Or Murderers. They Are External Dangers, Petty Dangers. We Should Fear Ourselves. Prejudices Are The Real Robbers; Vices The Real Murderers. The Great Dangers Are Within Us. Why Worry About What Threatens Our Heads Or Our Purses? Let Us Think Instead Of What Threatens Our Souls.

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.

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

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

An Increase Of Tenderness Always Ended By Boiling Over And Turning To Indignation. He Was At The Point Where We Seek To Adopt A Course, And To Accept What Tears Us Apart.

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

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

"animals Are Happy," Said The Queen. "they Run No Risk Of Going To Hell." "they Are There Already," Replied Josiana.

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

One Can Resist The Invasion Of An Army But One Cannot Resist The Invasion Of Ideas.

Dreaming Is Happiness. Waiting Is Life.

Well, For Us, In History Where Goodness Is A Rare Pearl, He Who Was Good Almost Takes Precedence Over He Who Was Great.

Let The One Fight For His Flag, And The Other For His Ideal, And Let Them Both Imagine That They Are Fighting For The Country; The Strife Will Be Colossal.

Great Blunders Are Often Made, Like Large Ropes, Of A Multitude Of Fibers. Take The Cable Thread By Thread, Take Separately All The Little Determining Motives, You Break Them One After Another, And You Say: That Is All! Wind Them And Twist Them Together, They Become An Enormity.

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

Love Is Reducing The Universe To One Being.

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.

How Did It Happen That Their Lips Came Together? How Does It Happen That Birds Sing, That Snow Melts, That The Rose Unfolds, That The Dawn Whitens Behind The Stark Shapes Of Trees On The Quivering Summit Of The Hill? A Kiss, And All Was Said.

To Love Beauty Is To See Light.

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.

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.

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

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

Sacrificing The Earth For Paradise Is Giving Up The Substance For The Shadow.

Ah," Cried Gavroche, "what Does This Mean? It Rains Again! ...if This Continues, I Withdraw My Subscription.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

The Learned Man Knows That He Is Ignorant.

Large, Heavy, Ragged Black Clouds Hung Like Crape Hammocks Beneath The Starry Cope Of The Night. You Would Have Said That They Were The Cobwebs Of The Firmament.

A Queen, Devoid Of Beauty Is Not Queen; She Needs The Royalty Of Beauty's Mien.

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.

History Has Its Truth; And So Has Legend Hers.

The Poetic Element Lying Hidden In Most Women Is The Source Of Their Magnetic Attraction.

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

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.

The Convent Is Supreme Egotism Resulting In Supreme Self-denial.

Years Place At Last A Venerable Crown Upon A Head.

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

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

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.

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.

The True Artist Can Only Labor Con Amore.

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

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

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

My Revenge Is Fraternity! No More Frontiers! The Rhine For Everyone! Let Us Be The Same Republic, Let Us Be The United States Of Europe, Let Us Be The Continental Federation, Let Us Be European Liberty, Let Us Be Universal Peace!

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.

Have But Luck, And You Will Have The Rest; Be Fortunate, And You Will Be Thought Great.

The Most Excellent Symbol Of The People Is The Paving Stone. One Walks On It Until It Falls On One's Head.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Idleness Is The Heaviest Of All Oppressions.

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

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.

Ah! There You Are! He Exclaimed, Looking At Jean Valjean. I'm So Glad To See You. Well, But How Is This? I Gave You The Candlesticks Too, Which Are Of Silver Like The Rest, And For Which You Can Certainly Get Two Hundred Francs. Why Did You Not Carry Them Away With Your Forks And Spoons?

Woman, Nude, Is The Blue Sky. Clouds And Garments Are An Obstacle To Contemplation. Beauty And Infinity Would Be Gazed Upon Unveiled.

Who Can Be Sure That Jean Valjean Had Not Been On The Verge Of Losing Heart And Giving Up The Struggle? In Loving He Recovered His Strength. But The Truth Is That He Was No Less Vulnerable Than Cosette. He Protected Her And She Sustained Him. Thanks To Him She Could Go Forward Into Life, And Thanks To Her He Could Continue Virtous. He Was The Child's Support And She His Mainstay. Sublime, Unfathomable Marvel Of The Balance Of Destiny!

Genius: The Superhuman In Man.

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

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

Life Is The Flower For Which Love Is The Honey.

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

Dark Error's Other Hidden Side Is Truth.

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

The Ideal And The Beautiful Are Identical; The Ideal Corresponds To The Idea, And Beauty To Form; Hence Idea And Substance Are Cognate.

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