Well, listen a moment, Monsieur Mayor; I have often been severe in my life towards others. It was just. I did right. Now if I were not severe towards myself, all I have justly done would become injustice. Should I spare myself more than others? No. What! if I should be prompt only to punish others and not myself, I should be a wretched indeed! - Javert to M. Madeleine
("Les Miserables")
More Quotes from Victor Hugo:
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
A creditor is worst than a master; for a master owns only your physical presence, whereas a creditor owns your dignity and may affront it.
Victor Hugo
When God desires to destroy a thing, he entrusts its destruction to the thing itself. Every bad institution of this world ends by suicide.
Victor Hugo
Style is the substance of the subject called unceasingly to the surface.
Victor Hugo
Nothing can be more depressing than to expose, naked to the light of thought, the hideous growth of argot. Indeed it is like a sort of repellent animal intended to dwell in darkness which has been dragged out of its cloaca. One seems to see a horned and living creature viciously struggling to be restored to the place where it belongs. One word is like a claw, another like a sightless and bleeding eye and there are phrases which clutch like the pincers of a crab. And all of it is alive with the hideous vitality of things that have organized themselves amid disorganization.
Victor Hugo
What is called honors and dignities, and even honor and dignity, is generally fool's gold.
Victor Hugo
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Based on Topics: Listening QuotesBased on Keywords: javert, madeleine
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