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

-Victor Hugo

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Well, For Us, In

Victor Hugo

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

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Men Hate Those To Whom They Have To Lie.

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

To Be Perfectly Happy It Does Not Suffice To Possess Happiness, It Is Necessary To Have Deserved It.

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.

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

People Do Not Lack Strength; They Lack Will.

As We Have Explained, In First Love The Soul Is Taken Long Before The Body; Later The Body Is Taken Long Before The Soul; Sometimes The Soul Is Not Taken At All.

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

I'm Religiously Opposed To Religion.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

The Brutalities Of Progress Are Called Revolutions. When They Are Over We Realize This: That The Human Race Has Been Roughly Handled, But That It Has Advanced.

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.

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 An Old Man Of About Seventy-five Years Of Age; He Had Occupied The See Of D—— Since 1806.

To Gaze Into The Depths Of The Sea Is, In The Imagination, Like Beholding The Vast Unknown, And From Its Most Terrible Point Of View. The Submarine Gulf Is Analogous To The Realm Of Night And Dreams. There Also Is Sleep, Unconsciousness, Or At Least Apparent Unconsciousness, Of Creation. There In The Awful Silence And Darkness, The Rude First Forms Of Life, Phantomlike, Demoniacal, Pursue Their Horrible Instincts.

With A Tiny Bit Of Effort, The Nettle Would Be Useful; If You Neglect It, It Becomes A Pest. So Then We Kill It. How Many Men Are Like Nettles My Friends, There Is No Such Thing As A Weed And No Such Thing As A Bad Man. There Are Only Bad Cultivators.

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.

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

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.

The Persistence Of An All-absorbing Idea Is Terrible.

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

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

I Put A Phrygian Cap On The Old Dictionary.

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

Who Then Understands The Reciprocal Flux And Reflux Of The Infinitely Great And The Infinitely Small, The Echoing Of Causes In The Abysses Of Being, And The Avalanches Of Creation?

Yes, The Brutalities Of Progress Are Called Revolutions

One Is Not Idle Because One Is Absorbed. There Is Both Visible And Invisible Labor. To Contemplate Is To Toil, To Think Is To Do. The Crossed Arms Work, The Clasped Hands Act. The Eyes Upturned To Heaven Are An Act Of Creation.

When Dictatorship Is A Fact, Revolution Becomes A Right.

Emotion Is Always New And The Word Has Always Served; Therein Lies The Difficulty Of Expressing Emotion.

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

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.

Right Is Right Only When Entire.

What Is The Cat?" He Exclaimed. "it Is A Corrective. God, Having Made The Mouse, Said, 'i've Made A Blunder.' And He Made The Cat. The Cat Is The Erratum Of The Mouse. The Mouse, Plus The Cat, Is The Revised And Corrected Proof Of Creation.

Revolution Is The Larva Of Civilization.

If It Were (is It Not) Outrageous That Society Should Treat With Such Rigid Precision Those Of Its Members Who Were Most Poorly Endowed In The Distribution Or Wealth That Chance Had Made, And Who Were, Therefore, Most Worthy Of Indulgence.

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

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

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

God Made Only Water, But Man Made Wine.

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.

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.

A Fixed Idea Ends In Madness Or Heroism.

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.

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

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 Wind Of Revolutions Is Not Tractable.

To Divinise Is Human, To Humanise Is Divine.

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

Whom Man Kills, Him God Restoreth To Life.

To Die For Lack Of Love Is Horrible. The Asphyxia Of The Soul.

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.

Everything Speaks: The Flowing Airstream And The Sailing Halycon, The Blade Of Grass, The Flower, The Bud, The Element; Did You Imagine The Universe To Be Otherwise?

Dear God! How Beauty Varies In Nature And Art. In A Woman The Flesh Must Be Like Marble; In A Statue The Marble Must Be Like Flesh.

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

He Caught Her, She Fell, He Caught Her In His Arms, He Held Her Tightly Unconscious Of What He Was Doing. He Held Her Up, Though Tottering Himself. He Felt As If His Head Were Filled With Smoke; Flashes Of Light Slipped Through His Eyelids; His Thoughts Vanished; It Seemed To Him That He Was Performing A Religious Act, And That He Was Committing A Profanation. Moreover, He Did Not Feel One Passionate Desire For This Ravishing Woman, Whose Form He Felt Against His Heart. He Was Lost In Love.

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

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

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

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

A Breath Of Paris Preserves The Soul.

I Wanted To See You Again, Touch You, Know Who You Were, See If I Would Find You Identical With The Ideal Image Of You Which Had Remained With Me And Perhaps Shatter My Dream With The Aid Of Reality. -claude Frollo

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

Monastic Incarceration Is Castration.

Freedom Begins Where It Ends Ignorance.

A Republic May Be Called The Climate Of Civilization.

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.

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

We Need Those Who Pray Constantly To Compensate For Those Who Do Not Pray At All.

How Frightened Hypocrisy Hastens To Defend Itself.

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

Dark Error's Other Hidden Side Is Truth.

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

France Is Great Because She Is France.

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

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

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?

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

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

Prayer Is An August Avowal Of Ignorance.

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

It Is An Unpleasant Thing To Go To Bed Without Supper, It Is A Still Less Pleasant Thing Not To Sup And Not To Know Where One Is To Sleep.

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.

Oh! Everything I Loved!

The Animal Is Ignorant Of The Fact That He Knows. The Man Is Aware Of The Fact That He Is Ignorant.

The Flesh Is The Upper Surface Of The Unknown.

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

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

The Heart Becomes Heroic Through Passion. It Is No Longer Composed Of Anything But What Is Pure; It No Longer Rests Upon Anything But What Is Elevated And Great.

Stupidity Talks, Vanity Acts.

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.

To Lie A Little Is Not Possible: He Who Lies, Lies The Whole Lie.

Ideas Can No More Flow Backward Than Can A River.

Life Is The Flower For Which Love Is The Honey.

Love Is Like A Tree: It Grows By Itself, Roots Itself Deeply In Our Being And Continues To Flourish Over A Heart In Ruin. The Inexplicable Fact Is That The Blinder It Is, The More Tenacious It Is. It Is Never Stronger Than When It Is Completely Unreasonable.

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

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

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

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

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

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 Mountains, The Forest, And The Sea, Render Men Savage; They Develop The Fierce, But Yet Do Not Destroy The Human.

In This Way, His Unhappy Soul Struggled With Its Anguish. Eighteen Hundred Years Before This Unfortunate Man, The Mysterious Being, In Whom All The Sanctities And All The Sufferings Of Humanity Come Together, He Too, While The Olive Trees Trembled In The Fierce Breath Of The Infinite, Had Brushed Away The Fearful Cup That Appeared Before Him, Streaming With Shadow And Running Over With Darkness, In The Star-filled Depths. (pg. 236)

If You Don't Build Castles In The Air You Won't Build Anything On The Ground.

Castles In The Air

There Is In Every Village A Torch - The Teacher; And An Extinguisher - The Priest.

When Liberty Returns, I Will Return.

One Cannot Resist An Idea Whose Time Has Come.

War Can Only Be Qualified By Its Object, And There Is Neither Foreign War Nor Civil War, There Is Only Just Or Unjust War.

By Making Himself A Priest Made Himself A Demon.

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

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.

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!

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

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

Curiosity Is Gluttony. To See Is To Devour.

The Man Is Placed Where The Earth Ends, The Woman, Where The Heaven Starts.

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

A Writer Is A World Trapped In A Person.

She Was Sad With An Obscure Sadness Of Which She Had Not The Secret Herself. There Was In Her Whole Person The Stupor Of A Life Ended But Never Commenced.

The Day That A Woman Who Is Passing Before You Sheds A Light Upon You As She Goes, You Are Lost, You Love. You Have Then But One Thing To Do: To Think Of Her So Earnestly That She Will Be Compelled To Think Of You.

From A Political Point Of View, There Is But One Principle, The Sovereignty Of Man Over Himself. This Sovereignty Of Myself Over Myself Is Called Liberty

Kings Are For Nations In Their Swaddling-clothes: France Has Attained Her Majority.

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

Memory Is A Gulf That A Word Can Move To Its Lowest Depths.

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.

Son, Brother, Father, Lover, Friend. There Is Room In The Heart For All The Affections, As There Is Room In Heaven For All The Stars.

One Believes Others Will Do What He Will Do To Himself.

The Man Who Fights Against His Own Country Is Never A Hero.

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.

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

If Suffer We Must, Let's Suffer On The Heights.

A Man Trying To Escape Never Thinks Himself Sufficiently Concealed.

Whatever Causes Night In Our Souls May Leave Stars.

A Strange Thing Has Happened, Do You Know? I Am In Darkness. There Is A Person Who, Departing, Took Away The Sun.

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

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

The Need Of The Immaterial Is The Most Deeply Rooted Of All Needs. One Must Have Bread; But Before Bread, One Must Have The Ideal.

During A Wise Man's Whole Life, His Destiny Holds His Philosophy In A State Of Siege.

I Have Examined The Death Penalty Under Each Of Its Two Aspects: As A Direct Action, And As An Indirect One. What Does It Come Down To? Nothing But Something Horrible And Useless, Nothing But A Way Of Shedding Blood That Is Called A Crime When An Individual Commits It, But Is Sadly Called "justice" When Society Brings It About. Make No Mistake, You Lawmakers And Judges, In The Eyes Of God As In Those Of Conscience, What Is A Crime When Individuals Do It Is No Less An Offense When Society Commits The Deed.

There Are Plenty Who Regard A Wall Behind Which Something Is Happening As A Very Curious Thing.

One Can No More Keep The Mind From Returning To An Idea Than The Sea From Returning To A Shore. For A Sailor, This Is Called The Tide; In The Case Of The Guilty It Is Called Remorse. God Stirs Up The Soul As Well As The Ocean.

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.'

Let Us Fear The Worst, But Work With Faith; The Best Will Always Take Care Of Itself.

Do Not Let It Be Your Aim To Be Something, But To Be Someone.

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

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

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.

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.

It Is Only Barbarous Nations Who Have A Sudden Growth After A Victory

Nigeria Independence

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!

Fame Must Have Enemies, As Light Must Have Gnats.

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

Woe, Alas, To Those Who Have Loved Only Bodies, Forms, Appearances! Death Will Rob Them Of Everything. Try To Love Souls, You Will Find Them Again.

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

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

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

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.

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.

I Exist," Murmurs Someone Whose Name Is Everyone. "i'm Young And In Love; I Am Old And I Want Rest; I Work, I Prosper, I Do Good Business, I Have Houses To Rent, Money In State Securities; I Am Happy, I Have Wife And Children; I Like All These Things And I Want To Go On Living, So Leave Me Alone."... There Are Moments When All This Casts A Deep Chill On The Large-minded Pioneers Of The Human Race.

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.

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.

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.

What Love Commences Can Be Finished By God Alone.

There Is Such A Thing As The Pressure Of Darkness.

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

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!

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.

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?

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.

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.

Algebra Applies To The Clouds.

Oh Lord! Open The Doors Of Night For Me So That I May Leave This Place And Disappear.

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

Too Much Improvisation Leaves The Mind Stupidly Void.

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.

It Is Often Our Best Friends Who Throw Us Down.

If A Man Has His Throat Cut In Paris, It's A Murder. If 50,000 People Are Murdered In The East, It Is A Question.

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.

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

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

This Book Should Be Read As One Would Read The Book Of A Dead Man.

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

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

The Earth Is A Great Piece Of Stupidity.

The Omnipotence Of Evil Has Never Resulted In Anything But Fruitless Efforts. Our Thoughts Always Escape From Whoever Tries To Smother Them.

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.

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.

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.

It Is God Who Makes Woman Beautiful, It Is The Devil Who Makes Her Pretty.

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.

He Loved Books; Books Are Cold But Safe Friends.

Babylon Violated Diminishes Alexander; Rome Enslaved Diminishes Caesar; Massacred Jerusalem Diminishes Titus. Tyranny Follows The Tyrant. Woe To The Man Who Leaves Behind A Shadow That Bears His Form.

Diamonds Are To Be Found Only In The Darkness Of The Earth, And Truth In The Darkness Of The Mind.

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