Victor Hugo Quotes
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[T]he small is great, the great is small; all is in equilibrium in necessity.
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Often when we think we are knotting one thread, we are tying quite another.
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In the vast cosmical changes, the universal life comes and goes in unknown quantities, ... sowing an animalcule here, crumbling a star there, oscillating and ... entangling, from the highest to the lowest, all activities in the obscurity of a dizzying mechanism, hanging the flight of an insect upon the movement of the earth... Enormous gearing, whose first motor is the gnat, and whose last wheel is the zodiac.
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Success is a very hideous thing. Its false resemblance to merit deceives men.
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I like the laughter that opens the lips and the heart, shows at the same time the pearls and the soul.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Art needs no spur beyond itself.
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The true artist can only labor con amore.
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Progress is the stride of God.
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If you wish to understand what Revolution is, call it Progress; and if you wish to understand what Progress is, call it Tomorrow.
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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.
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To be wicked does not insure prosperity - for the inn did not succeed well.
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Religion, Society, and Nature--these are the three struggles of man.
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Friend is sometimes a word devoid of meaning; enemy, never.
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A wedding is not house-keeping.
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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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There are things stronger than the strongest man.
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There is a spectacle more grand than the sea; it is heaven; there is a spectacle more grand than heaven; it is the conscience.
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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.
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Not seeing people allows you to think of them as perfect in all kinds of ways.
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It is ourselves we have to fear. Prejudice is the real robber, and vice the real murderer.
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But alas, if I have not maintained my victory, it is God's fault for not making man and the devil of equal strength.