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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.

-Victor Hugo

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These Greek Capitals, Black

Victor Hugo

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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.

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

If I Have Not Been Exposed And Am Not In Any Danger Of Pursuit. But I Have Been Exposed, I Am Pursued - By Myself! That Is A Pursuer That Does Not Readily Let Go.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Is Called Honors And Dignities, And Even Honor And Dignity, Is Generally Fool's Gold.

When The Heart Is Dry The Eye Is Dry.

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!

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.

Liberation Is Not Deliverance.

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

Separated Lovers Cheat Absence By A Thousand Fancies Which Have Their Own Reality. They Are Prevented From Seeing One Another And They Cannot Write; Nevertheless They Find Countless Mysterious Ways Of Corresponding, By Sending Each Other The Song Of Birds, The Scent Of Flowers, The Laughter Of Children.

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.

For, To Make Deserts, God, Who Rules Mankind, Begins With Kings, And Ends The Work By Wind.

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

Optical Illusions

I Put A Phrygian Cap On The Old Dictionary.

Nature Is Pitiless; She Never Withdraws Her Flowers, Her Music, Her Fragrance, And Her Sunlight From Before Human Cruelty Or Suffering.

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.

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.

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

It Is Grievous For A Man To Leave Behind Him A Shadow In His Own Shape.

Art Moves. Hence Its Civilizing Power.

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.

Certain Thoughts Are Prayers. There Are Moments When, Whatever Be The Attitude Of The Body, The Soul Is On Its Knees.

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

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

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

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

If You Want To Civilize A Man, Begin With His Grandmother.

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?

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

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.

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

Let Us Say It Now: To Be Blind And To Be Loved, Is Indeed, Upon This Earth Where Nothing Is Complete, One Of The Most Strangely Exquisite Forms Of Happiness.

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

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

Men Become Accustomed To Poison By Degrees.

Slaves Would Be Tyrants Were The Chance Theirs.

It Is Often Our Best Friends Who Throw Us Down.

To Rove About, Musing, That Is To Say Loitering, Is, For A Philosopher, A Good Way Of Spending Time, Especially In That Kind Of Mock Rurality, Ugly But Odd, And Partaking Of Two Natures, Which Surrounds Certain Large Cities, Particularly Paris.

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

Look Not At The Face, Young Girl, Look At The Heart. The Heart Of A Handsome Young Man Is Often Deformed. There Are Hearts In Which Love Does Not Keep. Young Girl, The Pine Is Not Beautiful; It Is Not Beautiful Like The Poplar, But It Keeps Its Foliage In Winter.

The Smaller It Is The Heart, More Hatred Houses.

No One Can Keep A Secret Better Than A Child.

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.

Whenever We Encounter The Infinite In Man, However Imperfectly Understood, We Treat It With Respect. Whether In The Synagogue, The Mosque, The Pagoda, Or The Wigwam, There Is A Hideous Aspect Which We Execrate And A Sublime Aspect Which We Venerate. So Great A Subject For Spiritual Contemplation, Such Measureless Dreaming - The Echo Of God On The Human Wall!

I Was Always A Lover Of Soft-winged Things.

When You Get An Idea Into Your Head You Find It In Everything.

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

Idleness Is The Heaviest Of All Oppressions.

These Are Dark Radiances. They Have No Suspicion That They Are To Be Pitied. Certainly They Are So. He Who Does Not Weep Does Not See. They Are To Be Admired And Pitied, As One Would Both Pity And Admire A Being At Once Night And Day, Without Eyes Beneath His Lashes But With A Star On His Brow.

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

The World Is The Expanding Greece And Greece Is The Shrinking World.

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

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

The True Artist Can Only Labor Con Amore.

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

Art Needs No Spur Beyond Itself.

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.

It Is A Terrible Thing To Be Happy! How Pleased We Are With It! How All-sufficient We Think It! How, Being In Possession Of The False Aim Of Life, Happiness, We Forget The True Aim, Duty!

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.

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

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?

To Study In Paris Is To Be Born In Paris!

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?

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.

There Is A Material Advancement; We Desire It. There Is, Also, A Moral Grandeur; We Hold Fast To It.

The Sewer Is The Conscience Of The City.

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

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

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.

Fashions Have Done More Harm Than Revolutions.

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.

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

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.

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

There Is A Spectacle More Grand Than The Sea; It Is Heaven; There Is A Spectacle More Grand Than Heaven; It Is The Conscience.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Caution Is The Eldest Child Of Wisdom.

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

A Library Implies An Act Of Faith.

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.

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

Knowledge Is A Weight Added To Conscience.

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

To Pay Compliments To The One We Love Is The First Method Of Caressing, A Demi-audacity Venturing. A Compliment Is Something Like A Kiss Through A Veil.

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.

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

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.

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

Happy Valentines Day

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 Advance In Life, I Grow More Simple, And I Become More And More Patriotic For Humanity.

Let Us Study Things That Are No More. It Is Necessary To Understand Them, If Only To Avoid Them.

Every Bad Institution Of This World Ends By Suicide.

This First Glance Of A Soul Which Does Not Yet Know Itself Is Like Dawn In The Heavens; It Is The Awakening Of Something Radiant And Unknown.

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

To Know How To Distinguish The Agitation Arising From Covetousness, From The Agitation Arising From Principles, To Fight The One And Aid The Other, In This Lies The Genius And The Power Of Great Revolutionary Leaders.

Revolutionary Leaders

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.

Blessed Be Providence Which Has Given To Each His Toy: The Doll To The Child, The Child To The Woman, The Woman To The Man, The Man To The Devil!

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

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

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

They Say Love Is Blindness Of Heart; I Say Not To Love Is Blindness.

France Lost A Great Novel Last Night.

Marius And Cosette Did Not Ask Where This Would Lead Them. They Looked At Themselves As Arrived. It Is A Strange Pretension For Men To Ask That Love Should Lead Them Somewhere.

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

When Liberty Returns, I Will Return.

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

Of All The Things That God Has Made, The Human Heart Is The One Which Sheds The Most Light, Alas! And The Most Darkness.

Those Who Live Are Those Who Fight.

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

Astronomy, That Micography Of Heaven, Is The Most Magnificent Of The Sciences. ... Astronomy Has Its Clear Side And Its Luminous Side; On Its Clear Side It Is Tinctured With Algebra, On Its Luminous Side With Poetry.

A Stand Can Be Made Against Invasion By An Army; No Stand Can Be Made Against Invasion By An Idea.

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.

God Is Behind Everything, But Everything Hides God.

It Is Not So Easy To Keep Silent When The Silence Is A Lie.

The Malicious Have A Dark Happiness.

Everything Changes. The Only Thing That Remains Immovable Across The Centuries And Fixes The Character Of A People Is Cooking.

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.

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

Social Prosperity Means Man Happy, The Citizen Free, The Nation Great.

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

A Wretched Woman Is More Unfortunate Than A Wretched Man.

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

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

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.

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

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

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."

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

Despots Play Their Part In The Works Of Thinkers. Fettered Words Are Terrible Words. The Writer Doubles And Trebles The Power Of His Writing When A Ruler Imposes Silence On The People. Something Emerges From That Enforced Silence, A Mysterious Fullness Which Filters Through And Becomes Steely In The Thought.

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.

I Believe That Pity Is A Law Like Justice, And That Kindness Is A Duty Like Uprightness. That Which Is Weak Has A Right To The Kindness And Pity Of That Which Is Strong. In The Relations Of Man With The Animals...there Is A 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 Humans Ethics. Are There Not Here Unsounded Depths For The Thinker? Is One To Think Oneself Mad Because One Has The Sentiment Of Universal Pity In One's Heart?

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.

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

In Love, Such A Word, Whispered, Is A Mysterious Kiss Of The Soul To The Soul.

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.

Now Life Has Killed The Dream I Dreamed.

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

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.

Concision In Style, Precision In Thought, Decision In Life.

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.

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

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

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

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

Let Us Leave To The Brain What Belongs To It, And Agree That The Work Of The Men Of Genius Is Of The Superhuman, The Offspring Of Man.

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

We Do Not Comprehend Everything, But We Insult Nothing.

Not Being Heard Is No Reason For Silence.

Revolutions Are Not Born Of Chance But Of Necessity.

The Earlier Works Of A Man Of Genius Are Always Preferred To The Newer Ones, In Order To Prove That He Is Going Down Instead Of Up.

One Only Needs To See A Smile In A White Crape Bonnet In Order To Enter The Palace Of Dreams.

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.

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

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

A Phenomenon Often Seen. A Sceptic Adhering To A Believer; That Is As Simple As The Law Of The Complementary Colours. What We Lack Attracts Us. Nobody Loves The Light Like The Blind Man.

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.

Life Is The Flower For Which Love Is The Honey.

Years Place At Last A Venerable Crown Upon A Head.

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

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.

...though We Chisel Away As Best We Can At The Mysterious Block From Which Our Life Is Made, The Black Vein Of Destiny Continually Reappears.

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.

It Is Sad To Tell, But After Having Tried Society, Which Had Caused His Misfortune, He Tried Providence Which Created Society, And Condemned It Also.

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.

Enthusiasm Is The Fever Of Reason.

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

He Would Give All Of His Clothes To His Servant, Admonishing Him Not To Return Them Until He Had Completed His Day's Work.

Homer Is One Of The Men Of Genius Who Solve That Fine Problem Of Art - The Finest Of All, Perhaps - Truly To Depict Humanity By The Enlargement Of Man: That Is, To Generate The Real In The Ideal.

A Poet Is A World Enclosed In A Man.

A Great Artist Is A Great Man In A Great Child.

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?

Nothing Is More Dangerous Than To Stop Working. It Is A Habit That Can Soon Be Lost, One That Is Easily Neglected And Hard To Resume. A Measure Of Day-dreaming Is A Good Thing, Like A Drug Prudently Used ... But Too Much Submerges And Drowns. Woe To The Intellectual Worker Who Allows Himself To Lapse Wholly From Positive Thinking Into Day-dreaming. He Thinks He Can Easily Change Back, And Tells Himself That It Is All One. He Is Wrong! To Substitute Day-dreaming For Thought Is To Confuse Poison With A Source Of Nourishment.

Positive Thinking

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

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

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

A Wedding Is Not House-keeping.

Wherever The Turkish Hoof Trods, No Grass Grows.

A Writer Is A World Trapped In A Person.

Marius And Cosette Were In The Dark In Regard To Each Other. They Did Not Speak, They Did Not Bow, They Were Not Acquainted; They Saw Each Other; And, Like The Stars In The Sky Separated By Millions Of Leagues, They Lived By Gazing Upon Each Other.

Philosophy Is The Microscope Of Thought.

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

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

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

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

Tobacco Is The Plant That Converts Thoughts Into Dreams.

If God Had Intended That Man Should Go Backward, He Would Have Given Him Eyes In The Back Of His Head.

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