Victor Hugo Quotes - Page 24

• 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.

  Victor Hugo

  Mistake, Eye, Direct Action

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• Scepticism, that dry caries of the intelligence.

  Victor Hugo

  Intelligence, Dry, Scepticism

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• That is to be two and to be but one. A man and a woman mingled into one angel. It is heaven.

  Victor Hugo

  Angel, Men, Two

  Victor Hugo (2010). “The Works of Victor Hugo”, p.404, BookCaps Study Guides

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• A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil.

  Victor Hugo

  Inspirational, Kissing, Veils

  Victor Hugo (2016). “Les Misérables”, p.1169, My Ebook Publishing House

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• Promise to give me a kiss on my brow when I am dead.--I shall feel it.

  Victor Hugo

  Goodbye, Kissing, Giving

  Victor Hugo (2015). “Les Misérables”, p.1031, First Avenue Editions

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• The world is the expanding Greece and Greece is the shrinking world.

  Victor Hugo

  Shrinking, World, Expanding

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• What's our baggage? Only vows,
  Happiness, and all our care,
  And the flower that sweetly shows
  Nestling lightly in your hair.

  Victor Hugo

  Life, Flower, Hair

  Victor Hugo (2008). “Poems (EasyRead Large Bold Edition)”, p.328, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• He had slipped, climbed, rolled, searched, walked, persevered, that is all. Such is the secret of all triumphs.

  Victor Hugo

  Wisdom, Secret, Triumph

  Victor Hugo (2010). “The Works of Victor Hugo”, p.2209, BookCaps Study Guides

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• A faith is a necessity to a man. Woe to him who believes in nothing.

  Victor Hugo

  Faith, Wisdom, Believe

  Victor Hugo, Charles Edwin Wilbour (1862). “Cosette”, p.134

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• In the animal world no creature born to be a dove turns into a scavenger. This happens only among men.

  Victor Hugo

  Animal, Men, World

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• A day will come when all nations on our continent will form a European brotherhood... A day will come when we shall see... the United States of America and the United States of Europe face to face, reaching out for each other across the seas.

  Victor Hugo

  Country, Europe, Sea

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• Women play with their beauty as children do with their knives. They wound themselves with it.

  Victor Hugo

  Children, Knives, Play

  Victor Hugo (1994). “Les Miserables Volume Two”, p.613, Wordsworth Editions

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• M. Mabeuf’s political opinion was a passionate fondness for plants, and a still greater one for books. He had, like everybody else, his termination in ist, without which nobody could have lived in those times, but he was neither a royalist, nor a Bonapartist, nor a chartist, nor an Orleanist, nor an anarchist; he was an old-bookist.

  Victor Hugo

  Book, Political Opinions, Passionate

  Victor Hugo (1994). “Les Miserables Volume One”, p.461, Wordsworth Editions

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• The most ferocious animals are disarmed by caresses to their young.

  Victor Hugo

  Animal, Parent, Young

  Victor Hugo (1862). “Les Misérables: Fantine”, p.89, Library of Alexandria

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• What was more needed by this old man who divided the leisure hours of his life, where he had so little leisure, between gardening in the daytime, and contemplation at night? Was not this narrow enclosure, with the sky for a background, enough to enable him to adore God in his most beautiful as well as in his most sublime works? Indeed, is not that all, and what more can be desired? A little garden to walk, and immensity to reflect upon. At his feet something to cultivate and gather; above his head something to study and meditate upon: a few flowers on the earth, and all the stars in the sky.

  Victor Hugo

  Beautiful, Stars, Flower

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• There is a sacred horror about everything grand. It is easy to admire mediocrity and hills; but whatever is too lofty, a genius as well as a mountain, an assembly as well as a masterpiece, seen too near, is appalling.

  Victor Hugo

  Halloween, Greatness, Mountain

  Victor Hugo (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Victor Hugo (Illustrated)”, p.6986, Delphi Classics

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• 

  The convent, which belongs to the West as it does to the East, to antiquity as it does to the present time, to Buddhism and Muhammadanism as it does to Christianity, is one of the optical devices whereby man gains a glimpse of infinity.

  Victor Hugo

  Buddhism, Men, Glimpse

  Victor Hugo (1980). “Les misérables”, Viking Pr

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• Nothing can be more depressing than to expose, naked to the light of thought, the hideous growth of argot. Indeed it is like a sort of repellent animal intended to dwell in darkness which has been dragged out of its cloaca. One seems to see a horned and living creature viciously struggling to be restored to the place where it belongs. One word is like a claw, another like a sightless and bleeding eye; and there are phrases which clutch like the pincers of a crab. And all of it is alive with the hideous vitality of things that have organized themselves amid disorganization.

  Victor Hugo

  Depressing, Struggle, Eye

  Victor Hugo (1980). “Les misérables”, Viking Pr

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• As we have said, robust souls are sometimes almost, but not entirely, overthrown by strokes of misfortune....Despair has steps leading upward. From total depression we rise to despondency, from despondency to affliction, from affliction to melancholy. Melancholy is a twilight state in which suffering transmutes into a somber joy....Melancholy is the enjoyment of being sad.

  Victor Hugo

  Twilight, Joy, Being Sad

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• Forget not, never forget that you have promised me to use this silver to become an honest man.... Jean Valjean, my brother: you belong no longer to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I am buying for you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God!

  Victor Hugo

  Brother, Dark, Men

  Victor Hugo (1863). “Les misérables”, p.66

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• Animals are nothing but the portrayal of our virtues and vices made manifest to our eyes, the visible reflections of our souls.

  Victor Hugo

  Eye, Animal, Reflection

  Victor Hugo (1980). “Les misérables”, Viking Pr

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• Need is a low door which, when we must by stern necessity pass through, forces the greatest to bend down the most.

  Victor Hugo

  Doors, Needs, Lows

  Victor Hugo (1901). “Dramatic works: profusely illus. with wood engraving”

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• Humanity is our common lot. All men are made of the same clay. There is no difference, at least here on Earth, in the fate assigned to us. We come of the same void, inhabit the same flesh, are dissolved in the same ashes. But ignorance infecting the human substance turns it black, and that incurable blackness, gaining possession of the soul, becomes Evil.

  Victor Hugo

  Ignorance, Fate, Men

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• The most beautiful of altars, he said, is the soul of an unhappy creature consoled and thankfing God.

  Victor Hugo

  Beautiful, Soul, Unhappy

  Victor Hugo (2010). “The Works of Victor Hugo”, p.709, BookCaps Study Guides

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• I didn't believe it could be so monstrous. It's wrong to be so absorbed in divine law as not to perceive human law. Death belongs to God alone. By what right do men tough that unknown thing?

  Victor Hugo

  Believe, Men, Law

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