Victor Hugo Quotes
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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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[T]he small is great, the great is small; all is in equilibrium in necessity.
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We would be ashamed of our best behavior if the people knew the motives of our behaving so.
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Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.
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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.
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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.
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So a voice in the mountain is enough to let loose an avalanche. A word too much may be followed by a caving in. If the word had not been spoken, it would not have happened.
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This conflict between right and fact has endured since the origins of society. To bring the duel to an end, to consolidate the pure ideal with the human reality, to make the right peacefully interpenetrate the fact, and the fact the right, this is the work of the wise.
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The real, native South Seas food is lousy. You can't eat it.
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The beginning as well as the end of all his thoughts was hatred of human law, that hatred which, if it be not checked in its growth by some providential event, becomes, in a certain time, hatred of society, then hatred of the human race, and then hatred of creation, and reveals itself by a vague and incessant desire to injure some living being, it matters not who.
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If we must suffer, let us suffer nobly.
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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.
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A shadow is hard to seize by the throat and dash to the ground.
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God has set his intentions in the flowers, in the dawn, in the spring, it is his will that we should love.
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Don't educate your children to be rich. Educate them to be happy, so they know the value of things, not the price.
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There is in every village a torch - the teacher; and an extinguisher - the priest.
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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.
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It may be remarked in passing that success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblences to merit.
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Those who always pray are necessary to those who never pray.
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God secludes Himself; but the thinker listens at the door.
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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.
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Table talk and Lovers' talk equally elude the grasp; Lovers' talk is clouds, table talk is smoke.
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Excitement is not enjoyment: in calmness lies true pleasure. The most precious wines are sipped, not bolted at a swallow.
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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.