Victor Hugo Quotes
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There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.
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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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To die for lack of love is horrible. The asphyxia of the soul.
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No religion but blasphemes a little.
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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 has become necessary to call the attention of European governments to a fact which is apparently so insignificant that the governments seem not to notice it. The fact is this: an entire people is being annihilated. Where? In Europe. Are there witnesses? One witness, the entire world. Do the governments see it? No.
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We shall look on crime as a disease, and its physicians shall displace the judges, its hospitals displace the Galleys. Liberty and health shall be alike. We shall pour balm and oil where we formerly applied iron and fire; evil will be treated in charity, instead of in anger. This change will be simple and sublime.
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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.
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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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A translation in verse . . . seems to me something absurd, impossible.
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A doctor’s door should never be closed, a priest's door should always be open.
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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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The hand which moves over the dial moves also among souls.
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Success is a very hideous thing. Its false resemblance to merit deceives men.
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Marius and Cosette did not ask where this would lead them. They looked at themselves as arrived. It is a strange pretension for men to ask that love should lead them somewhere.
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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 earth is a great piece of stupidity.
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This book should be read as one would read the book of a dead man.
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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.
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A stout heart may be ruined in fortune but not in spirit.
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It is man's consolation that the future is to be a sunrise instead of a sunset.
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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.
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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.
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War can only be qualified by its object, and there is neither foreign war nor civil war, there is only just or unjust war.