The Toilers of the Sea Quotes

“In joined hands there is still some token of hope, in the clinched fist none.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“Reality in strong doses frightens.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“As time rolls on, however, we discover that duty is a series of compromises; we contemplate life, regard its end, and submit; but it is a submission which makes the heart bleed.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“To have lied is to have suffered.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“Then overwhelmed by the sense of that unknown infinity, like one bewildered by a strange persecution, confronting the shadows of night, in the presence of that impenetrable darkness, in the midst of the murmur of the waves, the swell, the foam, the breeze, under the clouds, under that vast diffusion of force, under that mysterious firmament of wings, of stars, of gulfs, having around him and beneath him the ocean above him the constellations, under the great unfathomable deep, he sank, gave up the struggle, lay down upon the rock, his face towards the stars, humble, and uplifting his joined hands towards the terrible depths, he cried aloud, "Have mercy.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“One becomes gradually accustomed to poison.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“Let us not, however, exaggerate our power. Whatever man does, the great lines of creation persist; the supreme mass does not depend on man. He has power over the detail, not over the whole. And it is right that this should be so. The Whole is providential. Its laws pass over our head. What we do goes no farther than the surface. Man clothes or unclothes the earth; clearing a forest is like taking off a garment. But to slow down the rotation of the globe on its axis, to accelerate the course of the globe on its orbit, to add or subtract a fathom on he earth's daily journey of 718,000 leagues around the sun, to modify the precession of the equinoxes, to eliminate one drop of rain--never! What is on high remains on high. Man can change the climate, but not the seasons Just try and make the moon revolve anywhere but in the ecliptic!

Dreamers, some of them illustrious, have dreamed of restoring perpetual spring to the earth. The extreme seasons, summer and winter, are produced by the excess of the inclination of the earth's axis over the place of the ecliptic of which we have just spoken. In order to eliminate the seasons it would be necessary only to straighten this axis. Nothing could be simpler. Just plant a stake on the Pole and drive it in to the center of the globe; attach a chain to it; find a base outside the earth; have 10 billion teams, each of 10 billion horses, and get them to pull. THe axis will straighten up, ad you will have your spring. As you can see, an easy task.

We must look elsewhere for Eden. Spring is good; but freedom and justice are beter. Eden is moral, not material.

To be free and just depends on ourselves.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“Man is at the mercy of events. Life is a perpetual succession of events, and we must submit to it. We never know from what quarter the sudden blow of chance will come. Catastrophe and good fortune come upon us and then depart, like unexpected visitors. They have their own laws, their own orbits, their own gravitational force, all independent of man.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“There, at a depth to which divers would find it difficult to descend, are caverns, haunts, and dusky mazes, where monstrous creatures multiply and destroy each other. Huge crabs devour fish and are devoured in their turn. Hideous shapes of living things, not created to be seen by human eyes wander in this twilight. Vague forms of antennae, tentacles, fins, open jaws, scales, and claws, float about there, quivering, growing larger, or decomposing and perishing in the gloom, while horrible swarms of swimming things prowl about seeking their prey.

To gaze into the depths of the sea is, in the imagination, like beholding the vast unknown, and from its most terrible point of view. The submarine gulf is analogous to the realm of night and dreams. There also is sleep, unconsciousness, or at least apparent unconsciousness, of creation. There in the awful silence and darkness, the rude first forms of life, phantomlike, demoniacal, pursue their horrible instincts.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“Night-time, regarded as a separate sphere of creation, is a universe in itself. The material nature of man, upon which philosophers tell us that a column of air forty-five miles in height continually presses, is wearied out at night, sinks into lassitude, lies down, and finds repose. The eyes of the flesh are closed; but in that drooping head, less inactive than is supposed, other eyes are opened. The unknown reveals itself. The shadowy existences of the invisible world become more akin to man; whether it be that there is a real communication, or whether things far off in the unfathomable abyss are mysteriously brought nearer, it seems as if the impalpable creatures inhabiting space come then to contemplate our natures, curious to comprehend the denizens of the earth. Some phantom creation ascends or descends to walk beside us in the dim twilight: some existence altogether different from our own, composed partly of human consciousness, partly of something else, quits his fellows and returns again, after presenting himself for a moment to our inward sight; and the sleeper, not wholly slumbering, nor yet entirely conscious, beholds around him strange manifestations of life—pale spectres, terrible or smiling, dismal phantoms, uncouth masks, unknown faces, hydra-headed monsters, undefined shapes, reflections of moonlight where there is no moon, vague fragments of monstrous forms. All these things which come and go in the troubled atmosphere of sleep, and to which men give the name of dreams, are, in truth, only realities invisible to those who walk about the daylight world. The dream-world is the Aquarium of Night.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“Dissimulation is an act of violence against yourself. A man hates those to whom he lies.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“Sublime characters are stubborn.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“To be nothing where he had been everything was an unendurable decline.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“le reve est l'aquarium de la nuit.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“The human body might well be regarded as a mere simulacrum; but it envelopes our reality, it darkens our light, and broadens the shadow in which we live. The soul is the reality of our existence. Strictly speaking, the human visage is a mask. The true man is that which exists under what is called man. If that being, which thus exists sheltered and secreted behind that illusion which we call the flesh, could be approached, more than one strange revelation would be made. The vulgar error is to mistake the outward husk for the living spirit.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“Melancholy is a twilight. Suffering melts into it in sombre joy.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“Happiness and despair do not breathe the same air. A man in despair participates in the life of others from a great distance; he is almost unaware of their presence; he has lost any consciousness of his own existence; he is a thing of flesh and blood but feels that he is no longer real; he sees himself only as a dream.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“A man's eye reveals his quality. It shows how much of a man there is within us. We declare ourselves by the light that gleams under our eyebrows. Petty spirits merely wink; great spirits emit a flash of lightning.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“Everything limits man but nothing stops him.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“It was one of those cases in which Jean Bart180 would have used the words he used to address to the sea each time he escaped shipwreck: “Cheated you, Englishman!” It is well known that when Jean Bart wanted to insult the ocean he called it the “Englishman.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“The Unknown sometimes holds surprises for the spirit of man. A sudden rent in the veil of darkness will momentarily reveal the invisible and then close up again. Such visions sometimes have a transfiguring effect, turning a camel driver into a Mohammed, a goat girl into a Joan of Arc. Solitude brings out a certain amount of sublime exaltation.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“You cannot keep up with the adventure of your life. You are crushed without suspecting why; you are crowned without understanding why.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“Facts are sometimes like a hailstorm. They bombard you; they deafen you.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“Let us live, by all means. But let us try to ensure that death is a progress. Let us aspire to worlds that are less dark. Let us follow the conscience that leads us there.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“The abyss sometimes has these thoughtful ideas; but you will do well to beware of its kindness.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“These two products of a man's labor often come together. At the very moment when you become rich you are paralyzed. That rounds off your life.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“Ești logodnica mea. Ridică-te și vino. Fie ca albastrul adânc unde strălucesc aștrii să fie martorul primirii sufletului meu de către sufletul tău și ca prima noastră sărutare să se contopească cu cerul.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“Dumnezeu a vrut să-și manifeste intențiile sale creând florile, aurora, primăvara, și voința sa este să iubești. În întunericul misterios al nopții ești atât de frumoasă! Această grădină a fost îngrijită de dumneata și în parfumul florilor ei e ceva și din respirația dumitale. Domnișoară, întâlnirea dintre două inimi e independentă de voința lor. Nu este vina noastră.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“Dacă nu s-ar aprinde nimic îndărătul pleoapei, înseamnă că nici un gând nu încolțește în minte, înseamnă că nici un sentiment de dragoste nu clocotește în inimă. Acela care iubește, acela are și voință, iar voința înflăcărează privirea omului. Hotărârea toarnă foc în privire; foc minunat, iscat de arderea gândurilor timide.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

“The claw, that's the beast that enters your flesh; the sucker, that's you yourself who enters into the beast. (...) Beyond the terror of being eaten alive is the ineffability of being drunk alive.”
― Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea