Victor Hugo Quotes
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In the French language, there is a great gulf between prose and poetry; in English, there is hardly any difference. It is a splendid privilege of the great literary languages Greek, Latin, and French that they possess a prose. English has not this privilege. There is no prose in English.
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Taste is the common sense of genius.
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An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise.
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Smallness in a great man seems smaller by its disproportion with all the rest.
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Where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incident, chaos will soon reign.
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The beautiful has but one type, the ugly has a thousand.
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Separated lovers cheat absence by a thousand fancies which have their own reality. They are prevented from seeing one another and they cannot write; nevertheless they find countless mysterious ways of corresponding, by sending each other the song of birds, the scent of flowers, the laughter of children.
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Nations, like stars, are entitled to eclipse. All is well, provided the light returns and the eclipse does not become endless night. Dawn and resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is the same as the survival of the soul.
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Hell is an outrage on humanity. When you tell me that your deity made you in his image, I reply that he must have been very ugly.
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In the opera we call love, the libretto is almost nothing.
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One believes others will do what he will do to himself.
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The animal is ignorant of the fact that he knows. The man is aware of the fact that he is ignorant.
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Fashions have done more harm than revolutions.
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Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause.
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I am a soul. I know well that what I shall render up to the grave is not myself. That which is myself will go elsewhere. Earth, thou art not my abyss!
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A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil.
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By putting forward the hands of the clock you shall not advance the hour.
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Never had the sky been more studded with stars and more charming, the trees more trembling, the odor of the grass more penetrating; never had the birds fallen asleep among the leaves with a sweeter noise; never had all the harmonies of universal serenity responded more thoroughly to the inward music of love; never had Marius been more captivated, more happy, more ecstatic.
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In this world, which is so plainly the antechamber of another, there are no happy men. The true division of humanity is between those who live in light and those who live in darkness. Our aim must be to diminish the number of the latter and increase the number of the former. That is why we demand education and knowledge.
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It is most pleasant to commit a just action which is disagreeable to someone whom one does not like.
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Civil war? What does that mean? Is there any foreign war? Isn't every war fought between men, between brothers?
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Du fond de l'ombre où nous sommes et où vous êtes, vous ne voyez pas beaucoup plus distinctement que nous les radieuses et lointaines portes de l'éden. Seulement les prêtres se trompent. Ces portes saintes ne sont pas derrière nous, mais devant nous.
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Ce besoin de l’immatériel est le plus vivace de tous. Il faut du pain; mais avant le pain, il faut l’idéal.
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There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees.