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Victor_Hugo.0_1

Today’s Google Doodle pays tribute to poet, artist and activist, Victor Hugo and his frustrating yet hauntingly beautiful Les Miserables, which was completed on this date in 1862. I read this entire 1,400 page English edition (it’s 1900 pages in the original French), when I was in high school, and to this day its virtuous former thief, Jean Valjean, remains one of my favorite literary characters. So, in honor of the beloved Victor Hugo and his magnums opus, here are my personal top ten quotes.

It is nothing to die. It is frightful not to live.

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He never went out without a book under his arm, and he often came back with two.

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Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.

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Not being heard is no reason for silence.

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You ask me what forces me to speak? A strange thing; my conscience.

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No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.

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There is nothing like a dream to create future.

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Nobody knows like a woman how to say things that are both sweet and profound. Sweetness and depth, this is all of woman; this is Heaven.

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Let us study things that are no more. It is necessary to understand them, if only to avoid them.

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If you wish to understand what Revolution is, call it Progress; and if you wish to understand what Progress is, call it tomorrow.