Victor Hugo Quotes
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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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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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He loved books; books are cold but safe friends.
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God whose gifts in gracious flood Unto all who seek are sent, Only asks you to be good And is content.
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This book should be read as one would read the book of a dead man.
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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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If a man has his throat cut in Paris, it's a murder. If 50,000 people are murdered in the east, it is a question.
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The cruel of heart have their own black happiness.
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The earth is a great piece of stupidity.
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Our mind is enriched by what we receive, our heart by what we give.
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He did not study God; he was dazzled by him.
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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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A fixed idea ends in madness or heroism.
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These two beings, who had loved each other so exclusively, and with so touching a love, and who had lived so long for each other, were now suffering beside one another and through one another; without speaking of it, without harsh feeling, and smiling all the while.
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I believe in religion against the religious; in the pitifulness of orisons, and in the sublimity of prayer.
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Press on! A better fate awaits thee.
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Knowledge is a weight added to conscience.
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What is the cat?" he exclaimed. "It is a corrective. God, having made the mouse, said, 'I've made a blunder.' And he made the cat. The cat is the erratum of the mouse. The mouse, plus the cat, Is the revised and corrected proof of creation.
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...We pray together, we are afraid together, and then we go to sleep. Even if Satan came into the house, no one would interfere. After all, what is there to fear in this house? There is always one with us who is the strongest. Satan may visit our house, but the good Lord lives here.
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Inspiration and genius -one and the same.
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A shadow is hard to seize by the throat and dash to the ground.
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Let us fear the worst, but work with faith; the best will always take care of itself.
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Those who always pray are necessary to those who never pray.
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Nothing is more dangerous than to stop working. It is a habit that can soon be lost, one that is easily neglected and hard to resume. A measure of day-dreaming is a good thing, like a drug prudently used ... But too much submerges and drowns. Woe to the intellectual worker who allows himself to lapse wholly from positive thinking into day-dreaming. He thinks he can easily change back, and tells himself that it is all one. He is wrong! To substitute day-dreaming for thought is to confuse poison with a source of nourishment.