Fantine Quotes

“And must I now begin to doubt - who never doubted all these years? My heart is stone, and still it trembles. The world I have known is lost in the shadows. Is he from heaven or from hell? And does he know, that granting me my life today, this man has killed me, even so.
- Javert”
― Victor Hugo, Los Miserables I

“A little girl without a doll is almost as unhappy, and quite as impossible, as a woman without children.”
― Victor Hugo, Fantine

“Le suprême bonheur de la vie, c'est la conviction qu'on est aimé; aimé pour soi-même, disons mieux, aimé malgré soi-même.”
― Victor Hugo, Fantine

“The best way to look at the soul is through closed eyes.”
― Victor Hugo, Fantine

“Être aimé, c'est en effet, sur cette terre où rien n'est complet, une des formes les plus étrangement exquises du bonheur.”
― Victor Hugo, Fantine

“The duty of the inn-keeper,is to sell to the first comer, stews, repose, light, fire, dirty
sheets, a servant, lice, and a smile; to stop passers-by, to empty small
purses, and to honestly lighten heavy ones; to shelter travelling families
respectfully: to shave the man, to pluck the woman, to pick the child
clean; to quote the window open, the window shut, the chimney-corner,the arm-chair, the chair, the ottoman, the stool, the feather-bed, the mattress
and the truss of straw; to know how much the shadow uses up the
mirror, and to put a price on it; and, by five hundred thousand devils, to
make the traveller pay for everything, even for the flies which his dog
eats!”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables: Volume 1 of 2

“There is no one for spying on people's actions like those who are not concerned in them”
― Victor Hugo, Fantine

“Sad fate! he would enter into sanctity only in the eyes of God when he returned to infamy in the eyes of men.”
― Victor Hugo, Fantine: Les Misérables #1

“So far as Louis XVI. was concerned, I said `no.' I did not think that I had the right to kill a man; but I felt it my duty to exterminate evil. I voted the end of the tyrant, that is to say, the end of prostitution for woman, the end of slavery for man, the end of night for the child. In voting for the Republic, I voted for that. I voted for fraternity, concord, the dawn. I have aided in the overthrow of prejudices and errors. The crumbling away of prejudices and errors causes light. We have caused the fall of the old world, and the old world, that vase of miseries, has become, through its upsetting upon the human race, an urn of joy."

"Mixed joy," said the Bishop.

"You may say troubled joy, and to-day, after that fatal return of the past, which is called 1814, joy which has disappeared! Alas! The work was incomplete, I admit: we demolished the ancient regime in deeds; we were not able to suppress it entirely in ideas. To destroy abuses is not sufficient; customs must be modified. The mill is there no longer; the wind is still there."

"You have demolished. It may be of use to demolish, but I distrust a demolition complicated with wrath."

"Right has its wrath, Bishop; and the wrath of right is an element of progress. In any case, and in spite of whatever may be said, the French Revolution is the most important step of the human race since the advent of Christ. Incomplete, it may be, but sublime. It set free all the unknown social quantities; it softened spirits, it calmed, appeased, enlightened; it caused the waves of civilization to flow over the earth. It was a good thing. The French Revolution is the consecration of humanity.”
― Victor Hugo, Fantine: Les Misérables #1

“La probité, la sincérité, la candeur, la conviction, l'idée du devoir, sont des choses qui, en se trompant, peuvent devenir hideuses, mais qui, même hideuses, restent grandes; leur majesté, propre à la conscience humaine, persiste dans l'horreur. Ce sont des vertus qui ont un vice, l'erreur. L'impitoyable joie honnête d'un fanatique en pleine atrocité conserve on ne sait quel rayonnement lugubrement vénérable. Sans qu'il s'en doutât, Javert, dans son bonheur formidable, était à plaindre comme tout ignorant qui triomphe. Rien n'était poignant et terrible comme cette figure où se montrait ce qu'on pourrait appeler tout le mauvais du bon.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables 1

“The galleys make the convict what he is; reflect upon that, if you please. Before going to the galleys, I was a poor peasant, with very little intelligence, a sort of idiot; the galleys wrought a change in me. I was stupid; I became vicious: I was a block of wood; I became a firebrand. Later on, indulgence and kindness saved me, as severity had ruined me”
― Victor Hugo, Fantine: Les Misérables #1

“At length he told himself that it must be so, that his destiny was thus allotted, that he had not authority to alter the arrangements made on high, that, in any case, he must make his choice: virtue without and abomination within, or holiness within and infamy without”
― Victor Hugo, Fantine: Les Misérables #1

“As long as he has for refrain nothing but la Carmagnole, he only overthrows Louis XVI.; make him sing the Marseillaise, and he will free the world.”
― Victor Hugo, Fantine: Les Misérables #1

“Oh, implacable march of human societies! Oh, losses of men and of souls on the way! Ocean into which falls all that the law lets slip! Disastrous absence of help! Oh, moral death!
The sea is the inexorable social night into which the penal laws fling their condemned. The sea is the immensity of wretchedness.
The soul, going down stream in this gulf, may become a corpse. Who shall resuscitate it?”
― Victor Hugo, Fantine: Les Misérables #1

“The hatred of luxury is not an intelligent hatred. This hatred would involve the hatred of the arts.”
― Victor Hugo, Fantine: Les Misérables #1

“I congratulate you," said he, in the tone which one uses for a reprimand. "You did not vote for the death of the king, after all."

The old member of the Convention did not appear to notice the bitter meaning underlying the words "after all." He replied. The smile had quite disappeared from his face.

"Do not congratulate me too much, sir. I did vote for the death of the tyrant."

It was the tone of austerity answering the tone of severity.

"What do you mean to say?" resumed the Bishop.

"I mean to say that man has a tyrant,--ignorance. I voted for the death of that tyrant. That tyrant engendered royalty, which is authority falsely understood, while science is authority rightly understood. Man should be governed only by science."

"And conscience," added the Bishop.

"It is the same thing. Conscience is the quantity of innate science which we have within us.”
― Victor Hugo, Fantine: Les Misérables #1

“extremity.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables Volume One

“Il y a une manière d'éviter qui ressemble à chercher.”
― Victor Hugo, Fantine

“était bien fait de sa personne, quoique d'assez petite”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables 1

“Une fois pourtant, il paraissait plus rêveur que de coutume, tandis que madame de Lô renouvelait le détail de toutes ces successions et de toutes ces «espérances». Elle s'interrompit avec quelque impatience: —Mon Dieu, mon cousin! mais à quoi songez-vous donc? —Je songe, dit l'évêque, à quelque chose de singulier qui est, je crois, dans saint Augustin: «Mettez votre espérance dans celui auquel on ne succède point.»”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables 1

“Vrai ou faux, ce qu'on dit des hommes tient souvent autant de place dans leur vie et surtout dans leur destinée que ce qu'ils font.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables 1

“Il visitait les pauvres tant qu'il avait de l'argent; quand il n'en avait plus, il visitait les riches.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables 1

“Ecclesiastes calls you All-powerful; the Maccabees call you Creator; the Epistle to the Ephesians calls you Liberty; Baruch calls you Immensity; the Psalms call you Wisdom and Truth; St. John calls you Light; the Book of Kings calls you Lord; Exodus calls you Providence; Leviticus, Holiness; Esdras, Justice; Creation calls you God; man calls you the Father; but Solomon calls you Mercy, and that is the fairest of all your names.”
― Victor Hugo, Fantine

“Konuşan çok ağız, ama düşünen pek az kafa...”
― Victor Hugo, Fantine

“El hombre tiene algunas facultades que se orientan hacia lo Desconocido ; el pensamiento, la ensoñación, la oración. Lo Desconocido es un océano. ¿Qué es la conciencia? Es la brújula de lo Desconocido.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Miserables, Volume I

“No le quitemos nada a la mente humana; suprimir es malo. Hay que reformar y transformar.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Miserables, Volume I

“¿Estas mujeres piensan? No. ¿Tienen voluntad? No. ¿ ¿Aman? No. Viven? No. Los nervios se les han vuelto huesos; los huesos se les han vuelto piedras. El velo que llevan es noche tejida. El hálito, bajo el velo, parece a saber qué respiración trágica de la muerte. La abadesa, una larva, las santifica y las aterroriza. Ahí está, montaraz, lo inmaculado. Así son los antiguos monasterios de España. Guaridas de la devoción terrible; antros de vírgenes ; lugares feroces.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Miserables, Volume I

“Любопытство подобно чревоугодию. Увидеть - все равно что полакомиться.”
― Виктор Гюго, Отверженные. Том 1

“Да, грубые проявления прогресса носят название революций. После того как они закончены, становится ясно, что человечество получило жестокую встряску, но сделала шаг вперед.”
― Виктор Гюго, Отверженные. Том 1

“Никогда не надо бояться ни воров, ни убийц. Это опасность внешняя, она невелика. Бояться надо самих себя. Предрассудки - вот истинные воры; пороки - вот истинные убийцы. Величайшая опасность скрывается в нас самих. Стоит ли думать о том, что угрожает нашей жизни и нашему кошельку? Будем думать о том, что угрожает нашей душе.”
― Виктор Гюго, Отверженные. Том 1