Victor Hugo

Would you realize what Revolution is, call it Progress; and would you realize what Progress is, call it Tomorrow.

Laughter is sunshine; it chases winter from the human face.

When he was tried, God was not there.

A thief is admitted, provided he be a lord.

It is necessary to understand them, were it only to avoid them.

In two days the colonel had been buried, and in three days forgotten.

Great grief is a divine and terrible radiance which transfigures the wretched.

Upon the first goblet he read this inscription, monkey wine; upon the second, lion wine; upon the third, sheep wine; upon the fourth, swine wine. These four inscriptions expressed the four descending degrees of drunkenness: the first, that which enlivens; the second, that which irritates; the third, that which stupefies; finally the last, that which brutalizes.

Not being heard is no reason for silence.

A sign of assent being given, with one blow of a hammer he broke the chain riveted to the iron ring at his ankle, then took a rope in his hand, and flung himself into the shrouds. Nobody, at the moment, noticed with what ease the chain was broken. It was only some time afterwards that anybody remembered it.

Sought for, he might be, but followed he was not.

In our eyes, cenobites are not idlers, nor is the recluse a sluggard.