Roman author Quotes

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

“I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses.”

“Marius and Cosette were in the dark in regard to each other. They did not speak, they did not bow, they were not acquainted; they saw each other; and, like the stars in the sky separated by millions of leagues, they lived by gazing upon each other.”

“The hatred of luxury is not an intelligent hatred. It implies a hatred of arts.”

“Men are still men. The despot's wickedness Comes of ill teaching, and of power's excess,-- Comes of the purple he from childhood wears, Slaves would be tyrants if the chance were theirs.”

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

“Is it not when the fall is the lowest that charity ought to be the greatest?”

“The miserable's name is Man; he is agonizing in all climes, and he is groaning in all languages.”

“There are fathers who do not love their children; there is no grandfather who does not adore his grandson.”

“There are people who observe the rules of honor as one observes the stars, from a great distance.”

“My day's work will begin again the next morning. The tomb is not a blind alley.”

“All animals are to be found in men and each of theme exists in some man, sometimes several at the time.”

“The realities of life do not allow themselves to be forgotten.”

“Being good is easy, what is difficult is being just.”

“No doubt it was necessary to civilize man in relation to man. That work is already advanced and is making progress every day. But man must be civilized also in relation to nature.”

“Nothing is so stifling as symmetry. Symmetry is boredom, the quintessence of mourning. Despair yawns. There is something more terrible than a hell of suffering - a hell of boredom.”

“Excitement is not enjoyment: in calmness lies true pleasure. The most precious wines are sipped, not bolted at a swallow.”

“A bit of mould is a pleiad of flowers; a nebula is an ant-hill of stars.”

“Because a fact seems strange to you, you conclude that it is not one. ... All science, however, commences by being strange. Science is successive. It goes from one wonder to another. It mounts by a ladder. The science of to-day would seem extravagant to the science of a former time. Ptolemy would believe Newton mad.”

“A man trying to escape never thinks himself sufficiently concealed.”

“Caution is the eldest child of wisdom.”

“She was a lovely blonde, with fine teeth. She had gold and pearls for her dowry; but her gold was on her head, and her pearls were in her mouth.”

“No one can keep a secret better than a child.”

“Man does not understand nor accept immortality except on condition of self-remembrance.”

“Be like the bird who, pausing in her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing she hath wings.”