Chris > Chris's Quotes

“Not being heard is no reason for silence.”
― Hugo, Victor, Les Misérables

“The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“Laughter is sunshine, it chases winter from the human face.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“Those who do not weep, do not see.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“You ask me what forces me to speak? a strange thing; my conscience.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love, is to live by it.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“Teach the ignorant as much as you can; society is culpable in not providing a free education for all and it must answer for the night which it produces. If the soul is left in darkness sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“Life's great happiness is to be convinced we are loved.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“There is nothing like a dream to create the future.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“When love has fused and mingled two beings in a sacred and angelic unity, the secret of life has been discovered so far as they are concerned; they are no longer anything more than the two boundaries of the same destiny; they are no longer anything but the two wings of the same spirit. Love, soar.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“The future has several names. For the weak, it is impossible; for the fainthearted, it is unknown; but for the valiant, it is ideal.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“The pupil dilates in darkness and in the end finds light, just as the soul dilates in misfortune and in the end finds God.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“Love is the foolishness of men, and the wisdom of God.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“To die for lack of love is horrible. The asphyxia of the soul.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“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.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

“Let us study things that are no more. It is necessary to understand them, if only to avoid them.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving. The great acts of love are done by those who are habitually performing small acts of kindness. We pardon to the extent that we love. Love is knowing that even when you are alone, you will never be lonely again. & great happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved. Loved for ourselves. & even loved in spite of ourselves.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“If you wish to understand what Revolution is, call it Progress; and if you wish to understand what Progress is, call it Tomorrow.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“Diamonds are found only in the dark bowels of the earth; truths are found only in the depths of thought. It seemed to him that after descending into those depths after long groping in the blackest of this darkness, he had at last found one of these diamonds, one of these truths, and that he held it in his hand; and it blinded him to look at it. (pg. 231)”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“Let us sacrifice one day to gain perhaps a whole life.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation which, in the midst of civilization, artificially creates a hell on earth, and complicates with human fatality a destiny that is divine; so long as the three problems of the century - the degradation of man by the exploitation of his labour, the ruin of women by starvation and the atrophy of childhood by physical and spiritual night are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words and from a still broader point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, there should be a need for books such as this.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“Diamonds are to be found only in the darkness of the earth, and truth in the darkness of the mind. ”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“But listen, there will be more joy in heaven over the tears of a repentant sinner than over the white robes of a hundred just men.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“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. (Monseigneur Bienvenu in _Les Miserables_)”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“What is said about men often has as much influence upon their lives, and especially upon their destinies, as what they do.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“He did not study God; he was dazzled by him.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“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.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“Have no fear of robbers or murderers. They are external dangers, petty dangers. We should fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices the real murderers. The great dangers are within us. Why worry about what threatens our heads or our purses? Let us think instead of what threatens our souls.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables