Victor Hugo Quotes
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God is behind everything, but everything hides God.
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For true poetry, complete poetry, consists in the harmony of contraries. Hence, it is time to say aloud--and it is here above allthat exceptions prove the rule--that everything that exists in nature exists in art.
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In my old age there is a coming into flower. My body wanes; my mind waxes.
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Labor is life; thought is light.
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Great buildings, like great mountains, are the work of centuries.
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And, moreover, when it happens that both are sincere and good, nothing will mix and amalgamate more easily than an old priest and an old soldier. In reality, they are the same kind of man. One has devoted himself to country upon earth, the other to his country in heaven; there is no other difference.
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It is not so easy to keep silent when the silence is a lie.
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When the heart is dry the eye is dry.
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Because a fact seems strange to you, you conclude that it is not one. ... All science, however, commences by being strange. Science is successive. It goes from one wonder to another. It mounts by a ladder. The science of to-day would seem extravagant to the science of a former time. Ptolemy would believe Newton mad.
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We say and exclaim within ourselves without breaking silence, in a tumult where everything speaks except our mouths. The realities of the soul are none the less real for being invisible and impalpable.
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Let the one fight for his flag, and the other for his ideal, and let them both imagine that they are fighting for the country; the strife will be colossal.
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Right is right only when entire.
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I was always a lover of soft-winged things.
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A phenomenon often seen. A sceptic adhering to a believer; that is as simple as the law of the complementary colours. What we lack attracts us. Nobody loves the light like the blind man.
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We are on the side of religion as opposed to religions, and we are among those who believe in the wretched inadequacy of sermons and the sublimity of prayer.
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A queen, devoid of beauty is not queen; She needs the royalty of beauty's mien.
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The man who fights against his own country is never a hero.
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He who despairs is wrong.
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Every step which the intelligence of Europe has taken has been in spite of the clerical party.
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The future has many names: For the weak, it means the unattainable. For the fearful, it means the unknown. For the courageous, it means opportunity.
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A day will come when a cannon will be exhibited in museums, just as instruments of torture are now, and the people will be astonished that such a thing could have been.
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Love is a fault; so be it.
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The world of sleep has an existence of its own.
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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.