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Success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit.... They confound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud.

Victor Hugo

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Victor Hugo
Age: 83 †
Born: 1802
Born: February 26
Died: 1885
Died: May 22
Drawer
Essayist
Illustrator
Librettist
Memoirist
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Politician
Travel Writer
Writer
Besac
Victor Marie Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo
Victor Marie
Comte Hugo
Resemblances
Stars
Brilliance
Confound
Success
Ducks
Footprints
Thing
Deceived
Men
Shaped
Firmament
Merit
Footprint
False
Resemblance
Ugly
Duck
Star
Mud

More quotes by Victor Hugo

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The tomb is not a blind alley: it is a thoroughfare. It closes on the twilight. It opens on the dawn.
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Those who live are those who fight.
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How frightened hypocrisy hastens to defend itself.
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Profound hearts, wise minds, take life as God makes it it is a long trial, and unintelligible preparation for the unknown destiny.
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To learn to read is to light a fire every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.
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To contemplate is to look at shadows.
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What matters deafness of the ear, when the mind hears? The one true deafness, the incurable deafness, is that of the mind.
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Work is the law of life, and to reject it as boredom is to submit to it as torment.
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I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, his cloak was out at the elbows, the water passed through his shoes, - and the stars through his soul.
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The smaller it is the heart, more hatred houses.
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Because a fact seems strange to you, you conclude that it is not one. ... All science, however, commences by being strange. Science is successive. It goes from one wonder to another. It mounts by a ladder. The science of to-day would seem extravagant to the science of a former time. Ptolemy would believe Newton mad.
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Wonderful nature has a double meaning, which dazzles great minds and blinds uncultivated souls. When man is ignorant, when the desert is filled with visions, the darkness of solitude is added to the darkness of intelligence hence, in man, the possibilities of perdition
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Nothing awakens reminiscence like an aroma.
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Beauty is as useful as the useful. More so, perhaps. (Le beau est aussi utile que l'utile. Plus peut-etre.)
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The day that a woman who is passing before you sheds a light upon you as she goes, you are lost, you love. You have then but one thing to do: to think of her so earnestly that she will be compelled to think of you.
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I am a soul. I know well that what I shall render up to the grave is not myself. That which is myself will go elsewhere. Earth, thou art not my abyss!
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Dirt has been shrewdly termed misplaced material.
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There are things stronger than the strongest man.
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Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees.
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Dark Error's other hidden side is truth.
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