“What makes night within us may leave stars.”
Variant: Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars.
Source: Ninety-Three
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“To die is nothing; but it is terrible not to live.”
Variant: It is nothing to die. It is frightful not to live.
Source: Les Misérables
“He who opens a school, closes a prison”
Also cited as Opening a school is closing a prison
This quotation has been attributed to Victor Hugo since the nineteenth century, but the earliest citations attribute the saying instead to French education minister Victor Duruy:
Déjà M. Duruy avait posé en fait, quouvrir une école, c'est fermer une prison (1865)
English translation: M. Duruy had already suggested that opening a school is closing a prison
Disputed
Source: Journal des Economistes, March 1865, p. 489 http://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433022399574?urlappend=%3Bseq=495
“These two halves of God, the Pope and the emperor.”
Ces deux moitiés de Dieu, le pape et l'empereur!
Hernani (1830), Act IV, Scene II http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Hernani#ACTE_4
“Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.”
Ce qu’on ne peut dire et ce qu’on ne peut taire, la musique l’exprime.
Part I, Book II, Chapter IV
William Shakespeare (1864)
Variant: Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent
Source: Hugo's Works: William Shakespeare
Part 2, Book 1, Ch. 2
Variant translation: What makes night within us may leave stars.
Source: Ninety-Three (1874)
Context: Cimourdain was a pure-minded but gloomy man. He had "the absolute" within him. He had been a priest, which is a solemn thing. Man may have, like the sky, a dark and impenetrable serenity; that something should have caused night to fall in his soul is all that is required. Priesthood had been the cause of night within Cimourdain. Once a priest, always a priest.
Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars. Cimourdain was full of virtues and truth, but they shine out of a dark background.
“When you get an idea into your head you find it in everything.”
Source: The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
“He never went out without a book under his arm, and he often came back with two.”
Source: Les Misérables
Variant: I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat was threadbare - there were holes at his elbows; the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul.
Source: Les Misérables
“To put everything in balance is good, to put everything in harmony is better.”
Mettre tout en équilibre, c'est bien; mettre tout en harmonie, c'est mieux.
Quatre-vingt-treize (Ninety-Three) (1874), Book VII, Chapter V http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Quatre-vingt-treize_-_III%2C_7#V_LE_CACHOT
Ninety-Three (1874)
“Not being heard is no reason for silence.”
Source: Les Misérables
“Laughter is sunshine, it chases winter from the human face.”
Variant: A smile is the same as sunshine; it banishes winter from the human countenance.
Source: Les Misérables
Variant: To love or have loved is all-sufficing. We must not ask for more. No other pearl is to be found in the shadowfolds of life. To love is an accomplishment.
Source: Les Misérables
Variant: There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees.