The merciful precepts of Christ will at last suffuse the Code and it will glow with their radiance. Crime will be considered an illness with its own doctors to replace your judges and its hospitals to replace your prisons. Liberty shall be equated with health. Ointments and oil shall be applied to limbs that were once shackled and branded. Infirmities that once were scourged with anger shall now be bathed with love. The cross in place of the gallows: sublime and yet so simple.
Victor HugoIf you wish to understand what Revolution is, call it Progress; and if you wish to understand what Progress is, call it Tomorrow.
Victor HugoThe last resort of kings, the cannonball. The last resort of the people, the paving stone.
Victor Hugo"Animals are happy," said the queen. "They run no risk of going to hell." "They are there already," replied Josiana.
Victor HugoThese are dark radiances. They have no suspicion that they are to be pitied. Certainly they are so. He who does not weep does not see. They are to be admired and pitied, as one would both pity and admire a being at once night and day, without eyes beneath his lashes but with a star on his brow.
Victor HugoThere is a material advancement; we desire it. There is, also, a moral grandeur; we hold fast to it.
Victor HugoAnd if it happened to be a Christmas-night when the great bell seemed to rattle in its throat as it called the faithful to the midnight mass, there was such an indescribable air of life spread over the sombre facade that the great door-way looked as if it were swallowing the entire crowd, and the rose-window staring at them.
Victor Hugo