It seemed to be a necessary ritual that he should prepare himself for sleep by meditating under the solemnity of the night sky... a mysterious transaction between the infinity of the soul and the infinity of the universe.
Victor HugoRead
It is those books which a man possesses but does not read which constitute the most suspicious evidence against him.
Interpretation
Books that are owned but not read reflect poorly on a person's character.
Victor Hugo suggests that owning books signifies an intention to learn and grow, yet failing to engage with them implies a lack of curiosity or effort. The quote highlights the importance of not just possessing knowledge or resources but actively utilizing them for personal development.
In practice
During a lecture on personal development, this quote can be used to emphasize the importance of actively engaging with educational materials.
It seemed to be a necessary ritual that he should prepare himself for sleep by meditating under the solemnity of the night sky... a mysterious transaction between the infinity of the soul and the infinity of the universe.
When two mouths, made sacred by love, draw near to each other to create, it is impossible, that above that ineffable kiss there should not be a thrill in the immense mystery of the stars.
At that moment of love, a moment when passion is absolutely silent under omnipotence of ecstasy, Marius, pure seraphic Marius, would have been more capable of visiting a woman of the streets than of raising Cosette’s dress above the ankle. Once on a moonlit night, Cosette stopped to pick up something from the ground, her dress loosened and revealed the swelling of her breasts. Marius averted his eyes.
Thought is the work of the intellect, reverie is its self-indulgence. To substitute day-dreaming for thought is to confuse a poison with a source of nourishment.
Taste is the common sense of genius.
Forget not, never forget that you have promised me to use this silver to become an honest man.... Jean Valjean, my brother: you belong no longer to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I am buying for you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God!
Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot.
If you step up the self-education curve, you will come up with more answers than you can use.
Reading is exercise for our brains in the guise of pleasure. Books give us insight into other people, other cultures. They make us laugh. They make us think. If they are really good, they make us believe that we are better for having read them.
Growing up, I took so many cues from books. They taught me most of what I knew about what people did, about how to behave. They were my teachers and my advisers.
By its very definition, civic responsibility means taking a healthy role in the life of one's community. That means that classroom lessons should be complemented by work outside the classroom. Service-learning does just that, tying community service to academic learning.
Here’s how a child listens: you tell him something, and he puts his own interpretation on what you said. That’s what he hears. No one has ever heard you.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.