Victor Hugo Quotes
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The reduction of the universe to the compass of a single being, and the extension of a single being until it reaches God - that is love. Love is the salute of the angels to the stars. How sad is the heart when rendered sad by love! How great is the void created by the absence of the being who alone fills the world.
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Genius is a promontory jutting out into the infinite.
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It is nothing to die. It is frightful not to live.
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A poet who is a bad man is a degraded being, baser and more culpable than a bad man who is not a poet.
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Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.
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I would have liked to be - indeed, I should have been - a second Rembrandt.
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One sees qualities at a distance and defects at close range.
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Inanimate objects sometimes appear endowed with a strange power of sight. A statue notices, a tower watches, the face of an edifice contemplates.
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Thought is the labor of the intellect, reverie is its pleasure.
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One can resist the invasion of an army but one cannot resist the invasion of ideas.
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Almost all our desires, when examined, contain something too shameful to reveal.
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Perseverance, secret of all triumphs.
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Greater than the tread of mighty armies is an idea whose time has come.
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Peace is the virtue of civilization. War is its crime.
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A mother's arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them.
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People do not lack strength; they lack will.
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Jésus a pleuré, Voltaire a souri; c’est de cette larme divine et de ce sourire humain qu’est faite la douceur de la civilisation actuelle.
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The learned man knows that he is ignorant.
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If people did not love one another, I really don't see what use there would be in having any spring.
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The ox suffers, the cart complains.
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No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.
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To be perfectly happy it does not suffice to possess happiness, it is necessary to have deserved it.
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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.
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A noble soul and real poetic talent are almost always inseparable.