"...Though we chisel away as best we can at the mysterious block from which our life is made, the black vein of destiny continually reappears."
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Quote collection
Victor Hugo quotes (page 45 of 49)
966 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Let us leave to the brain what belongs to it, and agree that the work of the men of genius is of the superhuman, the offspring of man."
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"Here we stop. Upon the threshold of wedding nights stands an angel smiling, his finger on his lip."
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"My greatness does not extend to this shelf."
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"The mind's eye can nowhere find anything more dazzling or more dark than in man; it can fix itself upon nothing which is more awful, more complex, more mysterious, or more infinite. There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul."
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"He left her. She was dissatisfied with him. He had preferred to incur her anger rather than cause her pain. He had kept all the pain for himself."
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"He caught her, she fell, he caught her in his arms, he held her tightly unconscious of what he was doing. He held her up, though tottering himself. He felt as if his head were filled with smoke; flashes of light slipped through his eyelids; his thoughts vanished; it seemed to him that he was performing a religious act, and that he was committing a profanation. Moreover, he did not feel one passionate desire for this ravishing woman, whose form he felt against his heart. He was lost in love."
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"It is the peculiarity of grief to bring out the childish side of man."
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"That men saw his mask, but the bishop saw his face. That men saw his life, but the bishop saw his conscience."
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"We say and exclaim within ourselves without breaking silence, in a tumult where everything speaks except our mouths. The realities of the soul are none the less real for being invisible and impalpable."
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"It is grievous for a man to leave behind him a shadow in his own shape."
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"These two beings, who had loved each other so exclusively, and with so touching a love, and who had lived so long for each other, were now suffering beside one another and through one another; without speaking of it, without harsh feeling, and smiling all the while."
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"His judgement demonstrates that one can be a genius and understand nothing of an art that is not one's own."
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"We must never fear robbers or murderers. They are dangers from outside, small dangers. It is ourselves we have to fear. Prejudice is the real robber, vice the real murderer. Why should we be troubled by a threat to our person or our pocket? What we have to beware of is the threat to our souls'."
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"If she gives me all her time it is because I have all her heart."
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"There are things stronger than the strongest man."
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"The wise man is he who knows when and how to stop"
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"Winter changes into stone the water of heaven and the heart of man."
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"His whole life was now summed up in two words: absolute uncertainty within an impenetrable fog."
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"...Man lives by affirmation even more than he does by bread."
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