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Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo Quotes

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Famous Victor Hugo Quotes

“God in his harmony has equal ends For cedar that resists and reed that bends; For good it is a woman sometimes rules, Holds in her hand the power, and manners, schools, And laws, and mind; succeeding master proud, With gentle voice and smiles she leads the crowd, The somber human troop.”

MindHumansEndsSometimesHandsSchoolLawWomenVoiceMastersProudSucceedEqualHarmonyCrowdsAppreciationMannersGentleReedsSomberCedars
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Victor Hugo (Illustrated)
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“Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.”

LifeInspirationalHumansHumorFunnyHappinessFacesJoyNatureLaughingSunPositiveLaughterDeterminationWinterOptimisticCheerfulnessHuman FacesLaughter Is The Best MedicineHave A LaughSmile And LaughLaughs And SmilesSmile And LaughterWinter DaysLaughter And SmilesWinter SeasonHappy LaughterWinter TimePower Of LaughterHappiness And LaughterLaughter And JoySmile LaughInspirational LaughterFunny WinterHumour And LaughterWinter MonthsWinter HolidayWinter LoveCute Winter
Author:Victor Hugo
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“Can human nature ever be wholly and radically transformed? Can the man whom God made good be made wicked by man? Can the soul be reshaped in its entirety by destiny and made evil because destiny is evil? Can the heart become misshapen and afflicted with ugly, incurable deformities under disproportionate misfortune, like a spinal column bent beneath a too low roof?”

MenHumansHeartMadeSoulEvilDestinyHuman NatureLowsUglyWickedMisfortunesTransformedRoofBentColumnsEntiretyDeformity
Author:Victor Hugo
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“Love has no middle term; either it destroys, or it saves. All human destiny is this dilemma. This dilemma, destruction or salvation, no fate proposes more inexorably than love. Love is life, if it is not death. Cradle; coffin, too. The same sentiment says yes and no in the human heart. Of all the things God has made, the human heart is the one that sheds most light, and alas! most night.”

IfsHumansHeartMadeLightNightTermLove IsDestinyFateMiddleDestructionSalvationSentimentsShedHuman HeartAlasProposeCradleDilemmaCoffinsLove Is LifeYes And No
Book:Les Misérables
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“The beginning as well as the end of all his thoughts was hatred of human law, that hatred which, if it be not checked in its growth by some providential event, becomes, in a certain time, hatred of society, then hatred of the human race, and then hatred of creation, and reveals itself by a vague and incessant desire to injure some living being, it matters not who.”

IfsHumansWellsEndsMatterLawDesireCertainGrowthRaceEventsCreationHatredMiserableHuman RaceVagueIncessant
Book:Les Mis??rables
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“I exist," murmurs someone whose name is Everyone. "I'm young and in love; I am old and I want rest; I work, I prosper, I do good business, I have houses to rent, money in State Securities; I am happy, I have wife and children; I like all these things and I want to go on living, so leave me alone."... There are moments when all this casts a deep chill on the large-minded pioneers of the human race.”

WantHumansChildrenStatesMomentsYoungHouseNamesRaceWifeSecurityGoes OnCastsHuman RaceChillLeaving MePioneersMe AloneGood BusinessLeave Me Alone
Author:Victor Hugo
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“There is no supernatural, there is only nature. Nature alone exists and contains all. All is. There is the part of nature that we perceive, and the part of nature that we do not perceive. ... If you abandon these facts, beware; charlatans will light upon them, also the imbecile. There is no mean: science, or ignorance. If science does not want these facts, ignorance will take them up. You have refused to enlarge human intelligence, you augment human stupidity. When Laplace withdraws Cagliostro appears.”

IfsWantHumansMeanDoeFactsLightScienceNatureExistenceIgnoranceAccountsIntelligentStupidityPerceiveAbandonHuman IntelligenceCharlatansImbecilesHuman Stupidity
Author:Victor Hugo
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“I believe that pity is a law like justice, and that kindness is a duty like uprightness. That which is weak has a right to the kindness and pity of that which is strong. In the relations of man with the animals...there is a great ethic, scarcely perceived as yet, which will at length break through into the light, and which will be the corollary and the complement to humans ethics. Are there not here unsounded depths for the thinker? Is one to think oneself mad because one has the sentiment of universal pity in one's heart?”

ThinkingMenBelieveHumansHeartLightLawStrongI BelieveJusticeAnimalBreakKindnessDutyEthicsWeakUniversalRelationMadDepthOneselfPityLengthSentimentsThinkerBreak ThroughComplementAnimal EthicsUprightness
Author:Victor Hugo
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“Such is the remorseless progression of human society, shedding lives and souls as it goes on its way. It is an ocean into which men sink who have been cast out by the law and consigned, with help most cruelly withheld, to moral death. The sea is the pitiless social darkness into which the penal system casts those it has condemned, an unfathomable waste of misery. The human soul, lost in those depths, may become a corpse. Who shall revive it?”

MenWayHumansMayHas BeensSoulHelpingLawLostSocialMoralDarknessSeaGoes OnWasteOceanPrisonMiseryDepthCastsJailCorpsesHuman SoulProgressionHuman SocietyReviveUnfathomableRemorselessPrison System
Book:Les Misérables
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“Superstition, bigotry and prejudice, ghosts though they are, cling tenaciously to life; they are shades armed with tooth and claw. They must be grappled with unceasingly, for it is a fateful part of human destiny that it is condemned to wage perpetual war against ghosts. A shade is not easily taken by the throat and destroyed.”

HumansWarPoliticalDestinyTakenAtheismPrejudiceGhostTeethDestroyedBigotryThroatShadeSuperstitionsPerpetualClawsPerpetual War
Author:Victor Hugo
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“Whether we be Italians or Frenchmen, misery concerns us all. Ever since history has been written, ever since philosophy has meditated, misery has been the garment of the human race; the moment has at length arrived for tearing off that rag, and for replacing, upon the naked limbs of the Man-People, the sinister fragment of the past with the grand purple robe of the dawn.”

PeopleMenHumansHas BeensPhilosophyMomentsPastRaceWrittenConcernMiseryNakedDawnHuman RaceLengthLimbsFragmentsPurpleGarmentsRobesRagsSinisterFrenchmen
Book:Works: Les misérables; Fantine. Cosette. Marius. Saint-Denis. Jean Valjean
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“Whenever we encounter the Infinite in man, however imperfectly understood, we treat it with respect. Whether in the synagogue, the mosque, the pagoda, or the wigwam, there is a hideous aspect which we execrate and a sublime aspect which we venerate. So great a subject for spiritual contemplation, such measureless dreaming - the echo of God on the human wall!”

MenHumansDreamSpiritualSubjectsWallUnderstoodAspectTreatsInfiniteContemplationEncountersInfinityEchoesSublimeHideousMosquesSynagogue
Book:Les Misérables
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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.”

MenHumansMadeSoulEarthHumanityTurnsEvilBlackDifferencesCommonFateIgnorancePossessionFleshSubstanceVoidAshesClayBlackness
Author:Victor Hugo
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“To crush out fanaticism and revere the infinite, such is the law. Let us not confine ourselves to falling prostrate beneath the tree of creation and contemplating its vast ramifications full of stars. We have a duty to perform, to cultivate the human soul, to defend mystery against miracle, to adore the incomprehensible and to reject the absurd; to admit nothing that is inexplicable excepting what is necessary, to purify faith and obliterate superstition from the face of religion, to remove the vermin from the garden of God.”

HumansSoulFacesLawReligionFallStarsMysteryTreeCreationDutyGardenMiracleInfiniteAbsurdCrushRemoveRejectsSuperstitionsContemplatingAdoreHuman SoulFanaticismInexplicableRamificationsVermin
Author:Victor Hugo
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