Victor Hugo Quotes
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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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The real, native South Seas food is lousy. You can't eat it.
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Freedom begins where it ends ignorance.
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Lastly, this threefold poetry flows from three great sources - The Bible, Homer, Shakespeare.... The Bible before the Iliad, the Iliad before Shakespeare.
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A wedding is not house-keeping.
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They adored each other; but still the permanent and the immutable subsist. We may love and laugh, pout, clasp hands, smile, and exchange endearments, but that does not affect eternity. Two lovers hide in the dusk of evening, amid flowers and the twittering of birds, and enchant each other with their hearts shinning in their eyes; but the stars in their course still circle through infinite space.
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[T]he small is great, the great is small; all is in equilibrium in necessity.
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It is God who makes woman beautiful, it is the devil who makes her pretty.
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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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Was it possible that Napoleon should win the battle of Waterloo? We answer, No! Why? Because of Wellington? Because of Blucher? No! Because of God! For Bonaparte to conquer at Waterloo was not the law of the nineteenth century. It was time that this vast man should fall. He had been impeached before the Infinite! He had vexed God! Waterloo was not a battle. It was the change of front of the Universe!
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I have been loving you a little more every minute since this morning.
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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.
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...mothers are often fondest of the child which has caused them the greatest pain.
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France lost a great novel last night.
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In my old age there is a coming into flower. My body wanes; my mind waxes.
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Oh Lord! Open the doors of night for me So that I may leave this place and disappear.
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Ma vie est une énigme dont ton nom est le mot. (My life is an enigma, of which your name is the word.)
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To be wicked does not insure prosperity - for the inn did not succeed well.
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The hatred of luxury is not an intelligent hatred. It implies a hatred of arts.
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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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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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Excitement is not enjoyment: in calmness lies true pleasure. The most precious wines are sipped, not bolted at a swallow.
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Since we shall love each other, I shall be great and you shall be rich.
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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.