Victor Hugo

“The duty of the inn-keeper,is to sell to the first comer, stews, repose, light, fire, dirtysheets, a servant, lice, and a smile; to stop passers-by, to empty smallpurses, and to honestly lighten heavy ones; to shelter travelling familiesrespectfully: to shave the man, to pluck the woman, to pick the childclean; to quote the window open, the window shut, the chimney-corner,the arm-chair, the chair, the ottoman, the stool, the feather-bed, the mattressand the truss of straw; to know how much the shadow uses up themirror, and to put a price on it; and, by five hundred thousand devils, tomake the traveller pay for everything, even for the flies which his dogeats!”

“One can no more prevent the mind from returning to an idea than the sea from returning to a shore. In the case of the sailor, this is called the tide; in the case of the guilty, its is called remorse. God upheaves the soul as well as the ocean.”

“owing money was the beginning of slavery ..... a creditor was worse than a boss, for a boss only owns your person but a creditor owns your dignity and can slap it around.”

“Not seeing people allows you to think of them as perfect in all kinds of ways.”

“Everyday he saw better, and he began to climb slowly, one by one, almost reluctantly at first then, with intoxication and, as though drawn by an irresistible fascination, steps that started off dark, then gradually became dimly illuminated, only to end in the luminous and splendid blaze of enthusiasm.”

“There are no bad herbs or bad men; there are only bad cultivators.”

“Enquanto, por efeito de leis e costumes, houver proscrição social, forçando a existência, em plena civilização, de verdadeiros infernos, e desvirtuando, por humana fatalidade, um destino por natureza divino; enquanto os três problemas do século - a degradação do homem pelo proletariado, a prostituição da mulher pela fome, e a atrofia da criança pela ignorância - não forem resolvidos; enquanto houver lugares onde seja possível a asfixia social; em outras palavras, e de um ponto de vista mais amplo ainda, enquanto sobre a terra houver ignorância e miséria, livros como este não serão inúteis.”

“Chapter”

“Every torment they had experienced was returned to them an intoxication. It seemed to them that the griefs , the sleeplessness, the tears, the anguish, the dismay, the despair, became caresses and radiance...and that their sorrows were so many servants preparing their joy. To have suffered, how good it is! Their grief made a halo around their happiness.”

“All is not at an end on earth since we can still talk nonsense.”

“To know how to distinguish the agitation arising from covetousness, from the agitation arising from principles, to fight the one and aid the other, in this lies the genius and the power of great revolutionary leaders.”

“Those who have succeeded in procuring this admirable materialism have the joy of feeling themselves irresponsible, and of thinking that they can devour everything without uneasiness,--places, sinecures, dignities, power, whether well or ill acquired, lucrative recantations, useful treacheries, savory capitulations of conscience,--and that they shall enter the tomb with their digestion accomplished.”

“¿Por qué aquella desmesurada carreta ocupaba aquel sitio en la calle? Lo primero para obstruirla, y lo segundo para que se acabara de enmohecer. En el viejo orden social hay también una porción de instituciones que ocupan del mismo modo la vía pública, y que tampoco tienen otras razones para estar en ella.”

“I have a dream my life would be. So different from this hell I'm living. So different now from what it seem. Now life has killed the dream I dreamed."*Fantine”

“The wise man is he who knows when and how to stop”

“Ye who suffer because ye love, love yet more. To die of love, is to live in it.”

“Examine the road over which the fault has passed.- Charles Francios Bienvenu Myriel”

“France bleeds, but liberty smiles, and before the smile of liberty, France forgets her wound.”

“It is only barbarous nations who have a sudden growth after a victory”

“Ser-se canhoto é circunstância digna de inveja”

“Se quereis saber o que é a revolução, chamai-lhe Progresso, se quereis saber o que é o progresso, chamai-lhe Amanhã”

“Assim como só nas entranhas da Terra se acham os diamantes, assim somente nas entranhas do pensamento se encontram as verdades.”

“I'd rather be the head of a fly than the tail of a lion.”

“First I loved women, then animals, and now I love stones. They're just as amusing as women and animals and they're much less trecherous.”

“Ecclesiastes names thee Almighty, the Maccabees name thee Creator, the Epistle to the Ephesians names thee Liberty, Baruch names thee Immensity, the Psalms name thee Wisdom and Truth, John names thee Light, the Book of Kings names thee Lord, Exodus names thee Providence, Leviticus Sanctity, Esdras Justice, creation names thee God, man names thee Father; but Solomon names thee Compassion, which is the most beautiful of all thy names.”

“You were right to come to see a dying man. It is right that these moments should have witnesses. Everyone has his dream; I would like to live till dawn, but I know I have less than three hours left. It will be night, but no matter. Dying is simple. It does not take daylight. So be it: I will die by starlight”

“The terrible shock of his sentence had in some way broken that wall which separates us from the mystery of things beyond and which we call life.”

“And there's a woman dressed in white, who's nice to hear, and soft to touch, and she whispers, 'Colette, I love you very much' I have a place where no one is ost, and where no one cries, because crying is not aloud, on my Castle In the Clouds”

“Red, for the blood of angry men, black, for the night that will finally end.”

“Now, don't kick a dog 'cause it's only a pup!”

“Abstruse speculations contain vertigo.”

“The soul of the just contemplates in sleep a mysterious heaven.”

“The boughs, without becoming detached from the trunk grow away from it.”

“Sin is a gravitation.”

“To study in Paris is to be born in Paris!”

“In love there are no friends everywhere where there is a pretty woman hostility is open.”

“When the heart is dry the eye is dry.”

“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...”

“Un sceptique qui adhère à un croyant cela est simple comme la loi des couleurs complémentaires.Ce qui nous manque nous attire.”

“Ma bouche n'avait pas dit une chose que deja ton coeur avait repondu.”

“Curiosity is one of the forms of feminine bravery.”

“To love, or to have loved,—this suffices. Demand nothing more. There is no other pearl to be found in the shadowy folds of life. To love is a fulfilment”

“You look at a star for two reasons, because it is luminous, and because it is impenetrable. You have beside you a sweeter radiance and a greater mystery, woman.”

“Just see how idiotic one can be! One reckons without the good God.”

“Then overwhelmed by the sense of that unknown infinity, like one bewildered by a strange persecution, confronting the shadows of night, in the presence of that impenetrable darkness, in the midst of the murmur of the waves, the swell, the foam, the breeze, under the clouds, under that vast diffusion of force, under that mysterious firmament of wings, of stars, of gulfs, having around him and beneath him the ocean above him the constellations, under the great unfathomable deep, he sank, gave up the struggle, lay down upon the rock, his face towards the stars, humble, and uplifting his joined hands towards the terrible depths, he cried aloud, "Have mercy.”

“He was not his father, and this was not his work; but he was the master, and this was his masterpiece.”

“Ninety-three" was the war of Europe against France, and of France against Paris. And what was the Revolution? It was the victory of France over Europe, and of Paris over France. Hence the immensity of that terrible moment?, '93, greater than all the rest of the century”

“Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars. Cimourdain was full of virtues and truth, but they shine out of a dark background.”

“In joined hands there is still some token of hope, in the clinched fist none.”

“There, at a depth to which divers would find it difficult to descend, are caverns, haunts, and dusky mazes, where monstrous creatures multiply and destroy each other. Huge crabs devour fish and are devoured in their turn. Hideous shapes of living things, not created to be seen by human eyes wander in this twilight. Vague forms of antennae, tentacles, fins, open jaws, scales, and claws, float about there, quivering, growing larger, or decomposing and perishing in the gloom, while horrible swarms of swimming things prowl about seeking their prey.To gaze into the depths of the sea is, in the imagination, like beholding the vast unknown, and from its most terrible point of view. The submarine gulf is analogous to the realm of night and dreams. There also is sleep, unconsciousness, or at least apparent unconsciousness, of creation. There in the awful silence and darkness, the rude first forms of life, phantomlike, demoniacal, pursue their horrible instincts.”