When a woman is talking to you, listen to what she says with her eyes - Victor Hugo

The quantity of civilization is measured by the quality of imagination.

Alas! of what is France thinking? Of a surety, we must awake this slumbering nation, we must take it by the arm, we must shake it, we must speak to it; we must scour the fields, enter the villages, go into the barracks, speak to the soldier who no longer knows what he is doing, speak to the labourer who has in his cabin an engraving of the Emperor, and who, for that reason, votes for everything they ask; we must remove the radiant phantom that dazzles their eyes; this whole situation is nothing but a huge and deadly joke. Book I, VI

Que l'avenir soit un orient au lieu d'être un couchant, c'est la consolation de l'homme.