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
To a gargoyle on the ramparts of Notre Dame as Esmeralda rides off with Gringoire Quasimodo says. "Why was I not made of stone like thee?
Interpretation
What this quote means
Quasimodo expresses envy for the stone gargoyle's enduring form, contrasting it with his own painful existence.
In this poignant quote from Victor Hugo's 'The Hunchback of Notre-Dame', Quasimodo laments his own suffering and physical deformity while reflecting on the steadfastness and immunity to pain of the stone gargoyle. It speaks to the human condition, illustrating themes of longing, isolation, and the desire for a life free from the burdens of human emotion and experience.
Themes
PainIdentityLongingSufferingExistence
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on literature, to illustrate themes of self-acceptance.
More from Victor Hugo
All quotes βWhen 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.
Victor HugoRead
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 Cosetteβs 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.
Victor HugoRead
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.
Victor HugoRead
Taste is the common sense of genius.
Victor HugoRead
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!
Victor HugoRead
Similar quotes
It might not be perfect, but the fundamental stance I adopted with regard to my home was to accept it, problems and all, because it was something I myself had chosen. If it had problems, these were almost certainly problems that had originated within me.
Haruki MurakamiRead
Even victors are by victories undone.
John DrydenRead
We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires.
Pope Benedict XviRead
However, if "free choice" means more than a small selection between pre-established necessities, and if the inclinations and impulses used in work are other than those preshaped by a repressive reality principle, then satisfaction in daily work is only a rare privilege.
Herbert MarcuseRead
Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.
Cormac MccarthyRead
No one has ever laughed at a pun who did not see in the one word a twofold meaning. To materialists this world is opaque like a curtain; nothing can be seen through it. A mountain is just a mountain, a sunset just a sunset; but to poets, artists, and saints, the world is transparent like a window pane - it tells of something beyond....a mountain tells of the Power of God, the sunset of His Beauty, and the snowflake of His Purity.
Fulton J. SheenRead