Quotes from The Man Who Laughs

“The paradise of the rich is made out of the hell of the poor.”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“By degrees, however, they began to hope again. Such are our insubmergable mirages of the soul! There is no distress so complete but that even in the most critical moments the inexplicable sunrise of hope is seen in its depths.”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“He had slipped, climbed, rolled, searched, walked, persevered, that is all. Such is the secret of all triumphs.”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“He who is not master of his own thoughts is not accountable for his own deeds.”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“If one could only get out of a grief as one gets out of a city!”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“Knowledge is a weight added to conscience.”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“D'une complexion farouche et bavarde, ayant le désir de ne voir personne et le besoin de parler à quelqu'un, il se tirait d'affaire en se parlant à lui-même. Quiconque a vécu solitaire sait à quel point le monologue est dans la nature. La parole intérieure démange. Haranguer l'espace est un exutoire. Parler tout haut et tout seul, cela fait l'effet d'un dialogue avec le dieu qu'on a en soit.”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“Memory is a gulf that a word can move to its lowest depths.”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“There is no hypocrisy so great as the words which we say to ourselves, "I wish to know the worst!" At heart we do not wish it at all. We have a dreadful fear of knowing it. Agony is mingled with a dim effort not to see the end. We do not own it to ourselves, but we would draw back if we dared; and when we have advanced, we reproach ourselves for having done so.”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“Животът е непрекъснато губене на онова, което обичаме.”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“Le coeur se sature d'amour comme d'un sel divin qui le conserve; de la l'incorruptible adherence de ceux qui se sont aimes des l'aube de la vie, et la fraicheur des vielles amours prolonges. Il existe un embaumement d'amour. C'est de Daphnis et Chloe que sont faits Philemon et Baucis. Cette vieillesse la, ressemblance du soir avec l'aurore.

The heart is saturated with love as if with a divine salt which preserves it; that is what makes possible the incorruptible attachment of those who have loved each other from the dawn of life, and the freshness of old loves which have lasted a long time. Love embalms. Philemon and Baucis come from Daphnis and Chloe. That sort of aging connects evening with dawn.”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“Water! pretending to be pure, thou resemblest false friends. Thou art warm at the top and cold at bottom.”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“Nothing is so logical and nothing appears so absurd as the ocean.”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“Vénérons le chien. Le chien (quel drôle de bête!), a sa sueur sur sa langue et son sourire dans sa queue.”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“Of a disposition at once unsociable and talkative, desiring to see no one, yet wishing to converse with some one, he got out of the difficulty by talking to himself.”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“It combined corrupt simplicity with delicate ferocity, a curious variety of civilization; a tiger with a simper.”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“The shock caused by the fall of a careless word displaces that against which it strikes. At times it happens, without our knowing why, that because we have received an almost imperceptible blow from a chance word, the heart insensibly empties itself of love. He who loves, perceives a decline in his happiness. There is nothing more to be dreaded than this slow exudation from the fissure in the vase.”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“To speak out aloud when alone is as it were to have a dialogue with the divinity which is within.”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“Kada si u najvecim mukama i kada ti se dusa grci od bola,kada se ne zna da li si ziv ili mrtav,ipak se tada za one koje volis uvek nadje neznosti u izobilju.Po tome se poznaju velike duse.Kad sve iscezne ostaje samo ljubav.”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“Treba se cuvati sanjarije koja se namece. Sanjarija nosi u sebi tajanstvenost i opojnost mirisa.Ona je katkada kao otrovna ideja koja se siri i prodire kao dim. Covek moze da otruje snovima isto onako kao i sa cvecem. Opojno divno i kobno samoubistvo.
Rdjave misli su samoubistvo duse.U tome se i sastoji trovanje. Masta privlaci, pridobija lepim,mami,veze,a potom postajete njen saucesnik. Ona vas uortaci da zajednicki obmanjujete svest. Opcini vas,a potom vas pokvari. O mastanju se moze reci ono isto sto i o igri. Najpre bivas prevaren,a zatim i sam postajes varalica.”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“When infinity opens to us, terrible indeed is the closing of the gate behind.”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“I am come to warn you. I am come to impeach your happiness. It is fashioned out of the misery of your neighbour. You have everything, and that is composed of the nothing of others… As for me, I am but a voice. Mankind is a mouth, of which I am the cry. You shall hear me!”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“I am he who cometh out of the depths. My lords, you are great and rich. There lies your danger. You profit by the night; but beware! The dawn is all-powerful. You cannot prevail over it. It is coming. Nay! it is come. Within it is the day-spring of irresistible light. And who shall hinder that sling from hurling the sun into the sky. The sun I speak of is Right. You are Privilege. Tremble!”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“Let misery hide itself in silence, otherwise it becomes treason.”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“The wolf had been trained by the man, or had trained himself unassisted, to divers wolfish arts, which swelled the receipts. "Above all things, do not degenerate into a man," his friend would say to him. Never did the wolf bite: the man did now and then. At least, to bite was the intent of Ursus. He was a misanthrope, and to italicize his misanthropy he had made himself a juggler. To live, also; for the stomach has to be consulted.”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“It was said of him that he had once been for a short time in Bedlam; they had done him the honour to take him for a madman, but had set him free on discovering that he was only a poet. This story was probably not true; we have all to submit to some such legend about us.”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“Hommes et femmes de Londres, me voici. Je vous félicite cordialement d'être anglais. Vous êtes un grand peuple. Je dis plus, vous êtes une grande populace. Vos coups de poing sont encore plus beaux que vos coups d'épée. Vous avez de l'appétit. Vous êtes la nation qui mange les autres. Fonction magnifique. Cette succion du monde classe à part l'Angleterre. Comme politique et philosophie, et maniement des colonies, populations, et industries, et comme volonté de faire aux autres du mal qui est pour soi du bien, vous êtes particuliers et surprenants. Le moment approche où il y aura sur la terre deux écriteaux; sur l'un on lira: Côté des hommes; sur l'autre on lira: Côté des anglais. Je constate ceci à votre gloire, moi qui ne suis ni anglais, ni homme, ayant l'honneur d'être un docteur. Cela va ensemble. Gentlemen, j'enseigne. Quoi? Deux espèces de choses, celles que je sais et celles que j'ignore. Je vends des drogues et je donne des idées. Approchez, et écoutez. La science vous y convie. Ouvrez votre oreille. Si elle est petite, elle tiendra peu de vérité; si elle est grande, beaucoup de stupidité y entrera. Donc, attention. J'enseigne la Pseudodoxia Epidemica. J'ai un
camarade qui fait rire, moi je fais penser.”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“But for the matter of that, Ursus, although eccentric in manner and disposition, was too good a fellow to invoke or disperse hail, to make faces appear, to kill a man with the torment of excessive dancing, to suggest dreams fair or foul and full of terror, and to cause the birth of cocks with four wings. He had no such mischievous tricks.”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

“La tempestad es un pulmón que agrega sin cesar lúgubres agravaciones a lo que ya no tiene matiz, a lo negro.”
― Victor Hugo, quote from The Man Who Laughs

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

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