# Quote — Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

> The peculiarity of punishment of this kind, in which what is pitiless, that is to say, what is brutalizing, predominates, is to transform little be little, by a slow stupefactions, a man into an animal, sometimes into a wild beast.

- Author: [Victor Hugo](https://www.leafyquotes.com/victor-hugo.md)
- Book: [Les Miserables](https://www.leafyquotes.com/victor-hugo/les-miserables.md)
- Original (fr): Le propre des peines de cette nature, dans lesquelles domine ce qui est impitoyable, c’est-à-dire ce qui est abrutissant, c’est de transformer peu à peu, par une sorte de transfiguration stupide, un homme en une bête fauve, quelquefois en une bête féroce.
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Les_Mis%C3%A9rables#Book_II_-_The_Fall) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/victor-hugo/les-miserables/the-peculiarity-of-punishment

## More from this book

> Never am I seen with coats bedizened with gold and gems; I leave this false splendour to badly organized minds.

p. 1027 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/victor-hugo/les-miserables/never-am-i-seen.md)

> It is nothing to die; it is horrible not to live.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/victor-hugo/les-miserables/it-is-nothing.md)

> The soul does not give itself up to despair until it has exhausted all illusions.

p. 968 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/victor-hugo/les-miserables/the-soul-does.md)