Quotes from Victor Hugo

We ourselves respect the past in certain instances and in all cases grant it clemency, provided it consents to being dead. If it insists on being alive, we attack and try to kill it.

Asemeni unui mut care ?tie un secret, natura pare uneori c? vrea s? ne spun? totul.

Jean Valjean had this peculiarity, that he carried, as one might say, two beggar's pouches: in one he kept his saintly thoughts; in the other the redoubtable talents of a convict. He rummaged in the one or the other, according to circumstances.

Teach the ignorant as much as you can; society is guilty in not providing universal free education, and it must answer for the night it produces. If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness.

Hay muchas bocas que hablan y pocas cabezas que piensan.

Man lives by affirmation even more than by bread.

Le rêve est l'aquarium de la nuit

But the very progress of the human race may be halted because of a desire to sit down too soon. This has often been the failing of the bourgeoisie.

In fact, were it given to our human eye to see into the consciences of others, we would judge a man much more surely from what he dreams than from what he thinks.

Za svakoga od nas ima izvesnih paralelnosti izme?u našeg obrazovanja, naših obi?aja i našeg karaktera, koji stalno napreduju i prekidaju se jedino usled velikih promjena u životu.

I do not understand how God, the father of men, can torture his children and his grandchildren, and hear them cry without being tortured himself.

They were eyes no longer, but had become those fathomless mirrors which in men who have known the depths of suffering may replace the conscious gaze, so that they no longer see reality but reflect the memory of past events.

You have come from an unhappy place. But listen. There is more rejoicing in Heaven over the tears of one sinner who repents than over the white robes of a hundred who are virtuous. If you leave your place of suffering with hatred in your heart, and anger against men, you will be deserving of our pity; but if you leave with goodwill, in gentleness and peace, you will have risen above any of us.

The cause of all this youth's crimes was the desire to be well-dressed.

CHAPTER V—AT BOMBARDA'S

Providencia sólo necesitó un poco de lluvia y una nube que cruzó por el cielo a contrapelo de la estación y bastó para que se derrumbase un mundo. La batalla de Waterloo, y esto es lo que le dio a Blücher el tiempo necesario para llegar, no pudo empezar hasta las once y media. ¿Por qué? Porque el suelo estaba mojado. Hubo que esperar a que se endureciese un poco para que pudiera maniobrar la artillería.

Zu lieben oder geliebt zu haben genügt. Danach verlangt nichts mehr! In den geheimnisvollen Wendungen des Lebens ist keine weitere Perle mehr zu finden.

In our civilization there are fearful times when the criminal law wrecks a man. How mournful the moment when society draws back and permits the irreparable loss of a sentient being.

Let's fight, ye gods and little fishes! I've had enough of despotism.

La vejez no hace presa en los genios de lo ideal; para los Dante y los Miguel Ángel, envejecer es crecer; para los Aníbal y los Bonaparte, ¿es menguar?

There is a way of encountering error while on one's way to the truth.

Te diré su nombre y el mío: él se llama Crimen y yo Castigo

Théodule was, we think we have mentioned, the favourite of Aunt Gillenormand, who preferred him because she did not see him. Not seeing people permits us to imagine in them every perfection.

Nothing like a soulful glance under the noses of the saints!