Victor Hugo

“Aimer ou avoir aimée, cela suffit. Ne demandez rien ensuite. On n'a pas d'autre perle à trouver dans les plis ténébreux de la vie. Aimer est un accomplissement.”

“As for methods of prayer, all are good, as long as they are sincere.”

“In all his trials he felt encouraged and sometimes even upbourne by a secret force within. The soul helps the body, and at certain moments uplifts it. It is the only bird which sustains its cage.”

“As with stomachs, we should pity minds that do not eat.”

“Joy is the reflex of terror.”

“A shadow is hard to seize by the throat and dash to the ground.”

“There is no one for spying on people's actions like those who are not concerned in them”

“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.”

“Counterfeits of the past, under new names, may easily be mistaken for the future. The past, that ghostly traveler, is liable to forge his papers. We must be wary of the trap. The past has a face which is superstition, and a mask, which is hypocrisy. We must expose the face and tear off the mask.”

“He now clearly perceived the truth which was henceforth to be the centre of his life, namely, that while she was there, while he had her near him, he would need nothing except for her sake and fear nothing except on her account. He was not even conscious of feeling extremely cold, having taken off his coat to cover her.”

“Going about one's native land one is inclined to take many things for granted, roads and buildings, roofs, windows and doorways, the walls that shelter strangers, the house one has never entered, trees which are like other trees, pavements which are no more than cobblestones. But when we are distant from them we find that those things have become dear to us, a street, trees and roofs, blank walls, doors and windows; we have entered those houses without knowing it, we have left something of our heart in the very stonework. Those places we no longer see, perhaps will never see again but still remember, have acquired and aching charm; they return to us with the melancholy of ghosts, a hallowed vision and as it were the true face of France. We love and evoke them such as they were; and such as to us they still are, we cling to them and will not have them altered, for the face of our country is our mother's face.”

“Who can be sure that Jean Valjean had not been on the verge of losing heart and giving up the struggle? In loving he recovered his strength. But the truth is that he was no less vulnerable than Cosette. He protected her and she sustained him. Thanks to him she could go forward into life, and thanks to her he could continue virtous. He was the child's support and she his mainstay. Sublime, unfathomable marvel of the balance of destiny!”

“Nothing is more charming than the glow of happiness amid squalor. There is a rose-tinted attic in all our lives.”

“Strong and rare natures are thus created; misery, almost always a stepmother, is sometimes a mother; privation gives birth to power of soul and mind; distress is the nurse of self-respect; misfortune is a good breast for great souls.”

“Les recomiendo la moderación en sus deseos. (Tholomyes)”

“Hay una manera de huir que parece buscar.”

“Religions do a useful thing: they narrow God to the limits of man. Philosophy replies by doing a necessary thing: it elevates man to the plane of God.”

“Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.”

“I see black light (his last words)”

“The sixth of January, 1482, is not, however, a day of which history has preserved the memory. There was nothing notable in the event which thus set the bells and the bourgeois of Paris in a ferment from early morning. It was neither an assault by the Picards nor the Burgundians, nor a hunt led along in procession, nor a revolt of scholars in the town of Laas, nor an entry of “our much dread lord, monsieur the king,” nor even a pretty hanging of male and female thieves by the courts of Paris. Neither was it the arrival, so frequent in the fifteenth century, of some plumed and bedizened embassy. It was barely two days since the last cavalcade of that nature, that of the Flemish ambassadors charged with concluding the marriage between the dauphin and Marguerite of Flanders, had made its entry into Paris, to the great annoyance of M. lé Cardinal de Bourbon, who, for the sake of pleasing the king, had been obliged to assume an amiable mien towards this whole rustic rabble of Flemish burgomasters, and to regale them at his Hôtel de Bourbon, with a very “pretty morality, allegorical satire, and farce,” while a driving rain drenched the magnificent tapestries at his door.”

“He who contemplates the depths of Paris is seized with vertigo.Nothing is more fantastic. Nothing is more tragic.Nothing is more sublime.”

“In fact, he who has only beheld the misery of man has seen nothing; the misery of woman is what he must see; he who has seen only the misery of woman has seen nothing; he must see the misery of the child.”

“Qu'il luise ou qu'il luiserne, L'ours rentre dans en sa caverne.[26]”

“Adorable ambuscades of providence!”

“On s'en va parce qu'on a besoin de distraction et l'on revient parce qu'on a besoin de bonheur.”

“She had had sweet dreams, which possibly arose from the fact that her little bed was very white.”

“He said to himself that he really had not suffered enough to deserve such radiant happiness, and he thanked God, in the depths of his soul, for having permitted that he, a miserable man, should be so loved by this innocent being."Jean Valjean about Cossette”

“Not seeing people permits one to attribute to them all possible perfections.”

“Progress is not accomplished in one stage.”

“Certainly, I approve of political opinions, but there are people who do not know where to stop.”

“So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine destiny; so long as the three great problems of the century—the degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of woman through hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light—are unsolved; so long as social asphyxia is possible in any part of the world;—in other words, and with a still wider significance, so long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Misérables cannot fail to be of use. HAUTEVILLE HOUSE, 1862. [Translation by Isabel F. Hapgood]”

“There is a way of avoiding which resembles seeking.”

“Relegated as he was to a corner and as though sheltered behind the billiard table, the soldiers, their eyes fixed upon Enjolras, had not even noticed Grantaire, and the sergeant was preparing to repeat the order: 'Take aim!' when suddenly they heard a powerful voice cry out beside them, 'Vive la Republique! Count me in.'Grantaire was on his feet. The immense glare of the whole combat he had missed and in which he had not been, appeared in the flashing eyes of the transfigured drunkard.He repeated, 'Vive la Republique!' crossed the room firmly, and took his place in front of the muskets beside Enjolras.'Two at one shot,' he said.And, turning toward Enjolras gently, he said to him, 'Will you permit it?'Enjolras shook his hand with a smile.The smile had not finished before the report was heard.Enjolras, pierced by eight bullets, remained backed up against the wall is if the bullets had nailed him there. Except that his head was tilted. Grantaire, struck down, collapsed at his feet.”

“Above all, you can believe in Providence in either of two ways, either as thirst believes in the orange, or as the ass believes in the whip.”

“Let no one misunderstand our idea; we do not confound what are called 'political opinions' with that grand aspiration after progress with that sublime patriotic, democratic, and human faith, which, in our days, should be the very foundation of all generous intelligence.”

“A one-eyed man is much more incomplete than a blind man, for he knows what it is that's lacking.”

“The first symptom of true love in a man is timidity, in a young woman, boldness. This is surprising, and yet nothing is more simple. It is the two sexes tending to approach each other and assuming each the other's qualities.”

“Phoebus de Chateaupers likewise came to a 'tragic end': he married.”

“For dogs we kings should have lions, and for cats, tigers. The great benefits a crown.”

“Happiness lies for those who cry, those who hurt, those who have searched, and those who have tried for only they can appreciate the importance of people who have touched their lives.”

“Il n’y a rien de tel pour épier les actions des gens que ceux qu’elles ne regardent pas.”

“To love is to act.”

“Now, one cannot read nonsense with impunity.”

“Success is a very hideous thing. Its false resemblance to merit deceives men.”

“Blessed be Providence which has given to each his toy: the doll to the child, the child to the woman, the woman to the man, the man to the devil.”

“Les miserables”

“A breath of Paris preserves the soul.”

“To die is nothing; but it is terrible not to live.”

“It is not easy to keep silent when silence is a lie.”

“Love is an old invention but it is one that is always new. Make the most of it.”