So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine destiny; so long as the three great problems of the century–the degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of woman through hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light–are unsolved; so long as social asphyxia is possible in any part of the world;–in other words, and with a still wider significance, so long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Misérables cannot fail to be of use. HAUTEVILLE HOUSE, 1862. [Translation by Isabel F. Hapgood]. Victor Hugo
Some Similar Quotes
  1. Sometimes two people have to fall apart, to realize how much they need to fall back together. - Colleen Hoover

  2. What are we doing to each other? Because I know that I am doing to him exactly what he is doing to me. We are sometimes so happy, and never in our lives have we known more unhappiness. - Graham Greene

  3. The world has become sad because a puppet was once melancholy. The nihilist, that strange martyr who has no faith, who goes to the stake without enthusiasm, and dies for what he does not believe in, is a purely literary product. He was invented by... - Oscar Wilde

  4. The truth is, everyone likes to look down on someone. If your favorites are all avant-garde writers who throw in Sanskrit and German, you can look down on everyone. If your favorites are all Oprah Book Club books, you can at least look down on... - Brent Weeks

  5. Personal experience is the basis of all real literature. - George Henry Lewis

More Quotes By Victor Hugo
  1. It’s hard to communicate anything exactly and that’s why perfect relationships between people are difficult to find.

  2. Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.

  3. Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work.

  4. There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it

  5. One can be the master of what one does, but never of what one feels.

Related Topics