一些个人喜欢的段落，大多都是雨果的essay部分。

用来自勉，虽然人类的社会问题依旧广泛存在，但从21世纪看19世纪，还是感叹一些方面改进了，就像雨果希望、相信的那样（比如说法国现在不再执行死刑，雨果是坚定的反死刑支持者）

I want to destroy human inevitability, I condemn slavery, I chase out poverty, I instruct ignorance, I treat illness. I light up the night,I hate hatred. That is what I am and that is why I have written Les Miserables.As I see it, Les Miserables is nothing other than a book having fraternity as its foundation and progress as its summit.

-VictorHugo, 1862

Does human nature change so thoroughly and so radically? Can the human being created good by God be made wicked by man? Can the soul be completely remade by fate and, being ill-fated, become ill-natured? Can the heart grow deformed and develop incurable ugliness and infirmities under the pressure of inordinate misfortune,like the spine under too low a vault? Is there not in every human soul, was there not in the soul of Jean Valjean in particular, an original spark, adivine element, incorruptible in this world, immortal in the next, which goodness is capable of nurturing, stoking, kindling, fanning into a glorious blaze of brilliance, and which evil can never wholly extinguish?

Part 1

 

The supremehappiness of life is the conviction that you are loved, loved for yourself, better still, loved despite yourself.

Part 4,Book 3

 

He had been sent back to prison, this time for good behavior. fresh resentments had brewed within him. disgust and weariness overcame him once more. Even the memory of the bishop suffered what might have been a temporary eclipse, possible to appear bright and triumphant again later, but undoubtedly the sacred memory was fading. who knows whether jean Valjean was on the verge of losing heart and relapsing? He loved, and he became strong again. Alas! He was hardly any less unsteady on his feet than was Cosette. He protected her and she bolstered him.Thanks to him, she could make her way in life. Thanks to her, he could continue on the path of virtue. he was the child’s support, and the child was his stay. Oh unfathomable and divine mystery of destiny’s counterbalances! 

Enjolras was a leader, Combeferre was a guide. You would have wanted to fight with one and march with the other. Is it not that Combeferre was not capable of fighting. He was not unwilling to grapple with any obstacles and tackle it by direct forceand explosive power. But making the human race gradually conform to its destiny through the teaching of basic principles and the implementation of practical laws was more to his liking. And between the two types of brightness he was inclined to favor illumination over conflagration. A fire can certainly create a glow, but why not wait for daybreak? A volcano gives lights, but dawn gives even better light. 

 

Part 3, Book 4, I

 

He (Marius) still had the same opinions; only, they had mellowed. Strictly speaking, he no longer had opinions—he had sympathies. To which party did he belong? Humanity. Among humanity he favored France. Among the nation he favor the people. Among the people he favored women.

 

Dreams, which are wholly spontaneous, take on and retain the cast of our spirit, even in their vastness and their idealism. Nothing proceeds more directly ad more sincerely from the very depth of our souls than our intuitive and bondless aspirations to the glories of destiny. In these aspirations, much more than in considered, reasoned, composed ideas, is the true character of every man to be found. Our fanciful dreams are what most resemble us. Everybody dreams of the unknown and the impossible according to his nature. 

 

Part 3, Book 5, V

 

This conflict between right and reality has been going on ever since societies came into being. To end this duel, to marry purity of concept with human actuality, to instill right in reality and reality in right, that is the work of the wise. 

 

Part 4, Book 1, I

 

In short, learn how to produce wealth and how to distribute it, and you will have both material greatness and moral greatness. And you will be worthy of calling yourself France.

 

Part 4, Book 1, IV

 

Savage. Let‘s explain what we mean by this word. These ragged, roaring, ferocious, irate men,with clubs raised and pikes held high…what did they want? They wanted an end to oppression, and end to tyranny, an end to strife, work for men, education forchildren, social goodwill towards women, liberty, equality, fraternity, breadfor all, an idea for all, a paradise made of this world, progress. And that good,sweet blessed thing, progress, they demanded fearsomely, driven to extremity,to utter distraction, half-naked, with bludgeon in hand and a roar in their throats. They were savage, yes, but savages of civilization. 

 

They asserted rightfulness, with a fury. They wanted, through fear and trembling if need be,to force the human race towards paradise. They seemed barbarians, and they were saviors. Wearing the mask of darkness, they clamored for light.

 

As for us, if we had to make a choice between the barbarians of civilization and the civilized representatives of barbarism, we would opt for the barbarians. 

  

Part 4, Book 1, V

 

The French Revolution, which is none other than the ideal armed with the sword, took astand, and by the same decisive move closed the door on wickedness and opened the door to good.

It clarified the issue, promoted the truth,dispelled in the miasma, restored the century to health, crowned the people.

It could be said that the French Revolution created man a second time, by giving him a second soul, his rights. 

 

Part 4 Book 7, III

 

Let us never tire of repeating this: think above all of the woeful, disinherited multitudes, comfort them, bring air and light to them, love them, broaden their horizons magnificently, lavish on them all manner of education, give them the example of toil, never the example of idleness; lessen the weight of the individual burden by promoting the notion of the common objective, restrict poverty without restricting wealth, create vast areas of public activity for the people; have,like Briareus, a hundred hands to reach out in all directions to the weak and the oppressed…in short, see to it that the social mechanism provides, for the benefit of those who suffer and of those who are in darkness, more light and more well-being. This—let sympathetic souls not forget it—is the primary fraternal obligation.This—selfish hearts should know—is the primary political necessity. 

 

让我们永远不要疲于重复这些：关心那些悲惨、一无所有的大众，抚慰他们，把空气和光带给他们，去爱他们，开拓他们的视野，提供一切形式的教育，把勤奋教给他们，永远不要教他们懒惰……让我们像百手巨人那样，向各个方向伸出百双手去够到那些弱小和被压迫的人们

 

 

Let us pity both minds and stomachs that do not eat. If there is anything more heart-breaking than a bodystarving for want of bread, it is hungry soul dying for want of enlightenment.

 

Progress as a whole is tending towardsthe solution. One day we shall be amazed. As the human race moves upward, the lower strata will quite naturally emerge from the distress zone. Poverty will disappear through a simple rise in the standard of living. This solution would be a blessing, and it would be wrong to have any doubts about it.

 

At the moment, it is true, the past is very strong. It is reviving...It is advancing, threatening, laughing,it is at our gates. For our part, let us not despair.

 

What have we, who believe, to fear? 

 

Ideas are no more able to retreat than rivers to reverse their flow.

 

But let those set against thefuture think about it. By saying no to progress, it is not the future they are condemning, but themselves. They are giving themselves a serious illness. They are infecting themselves with the past. There is only one way to rejecting Tomorrow, which is to die. 

 

但是让那些与未来为敌的人想一想，向进步说不，他们谴责的不是未来，而是他们自身。他们让自己患上一种恶疾，他们在用“过去“感染他们自己。世上只有一种办法去拒绝明天，那就是死亡。

 

Now, what we want is no death—that of the body, as late as possible, that of the soul, never.

 

Yes, the enigma will surrender itskey, the sphinx will speak, the problem will be resolved. Yes, the People, the eighteenth century’s work in progress, will be completed by the nineteenth. Anyone who would doubt this is a fool! 

 

现在，我们渴望并不是死亡—肉体的死亡，越晚越好，灵魂的死亡—永远不。

 

没错，谜题会交出它的钥匙，斯芬克斯会开口，问题会被解决。没错，人民，在十八世纪没有完成的事业，会被十九世纪的完成。那些会质疑这一切的都是傻子！

 

 

Part 4, Book 7, IV

 

There is no half way with love. It means either ruin or salvation.

 

God willed that the love Cosette encountered was a love that saves. 

 

Part 4, Book 8,I

 

The country may well groan, but humanity applauds. Anyway, is it true the country is groaning? France bleeds, but freedom smiles. And seeing freedom’s smile, France forgets her wound. 

 

An enormous fortress of prejudice,privilege, superstition, mendacity, extortion, abuse, violence, iniquity and darkness still stands on this earth with its towers of hatred. It must bepulled down…To triumph at Austerlitz is grand, to storm the Bastille is magnificent. 

 

Part 4, Book 13, III

 

 

He who shed no tears does not see.These people are to be admired and pitied, as you would pity and admire a being embodying both night and day. 

 

Part 5, Book 1, XVI

 

 

Grief, when it reaches this pitch,routs all strength of conscience. These are deadly crises. Few of us emerge from them true to ourselves and steadfast in our duty. 

 

All the light in his life had gone and there he was,thinking he could still see the sun.

 

Part 4, Book 15, I

 

 

 

 

Progress is in man’s disposition.The common life of humankind is called progress, the collective stride of humankind is called progress. Progress moves forward. It makes the great humanand terrestrial journey towards the celestial and the divine. 

 

Whoever despairs is wrong.Progress awakes again without fail, and all things considered it might be saidto have moved on even while asleep, for it has grown. Back on its feet, it looks taller…raise no barriers against it, throw no boulders in to it.Obstacles make the waters foam and humanity seethe.

 

What, then, is progress? We have just said what it is. The enduring life of peoples.

 

 

It is impossible for us not to admire the glorious combatants of the future, the advocates of Utopia, whetheror not they succeed. Even when they come to grief they are to be revered, and it is perhaps in failure that they have greater majesty. 

 

 

Progress!

The idea it contains having more than one ordeal yet to undergo—we may perhaps be permitted, if not to lift the veil, at least to allow its light to shine through clearly. 

 

 

The book before the reader’s eye sat this moment is from start to finish, in its entirety and in its detail—whatever the inconsistencies, the exceptions and the failings—the progression from evil to good, from wrong to right, from night to day, from craving to conscience, from putrefaction to life, from bestiality to duty, from hell to heaven, from nothingness to God. Point of departure: matter. Point of arrival: spirit. Hydra at the outset, angel at the last. 

 

 

 

Part 5, Book 1, XX

 

 

A day will come when there will be no battlefields, but markets opening to commerce and minds opening to ideas. A day will come when the bullets and bombs are replaced by votes, by universal suffrage, by the venerable arbitration of a great supreme senate which will be to Europe what Parliament is to England, the Diet to Germany, and the Legislative Assembly to France.

A day will come when a cannon will be a museum-piece, as instruments of torture are today. And we will be amazed to think that these things once existed!

A day will come when we shall see those two immense groups, the United States of America and the United States of Europe, facing one another, stretching out their hands across the sea, exchanging their products, their arts, their works of genius, clearing up the globe, making deserts fruitful, ameliorating creation under the eyes of the Creator, and joining together, to reap the well-being of all, these two infinite forces, the fraternity of men and the power of God.

In the twentieth century war will be dead, the scaffold will be dead, animosity will be dead, royalty will be dead, and dogmas will be dead; but Man will live. For all there will be but one country—that country the whole earth; for all there will be but one hope—that hope the whole heaven.  （Address to the Workman's Congress at Marseille）  

Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.

If we're but a thousand, count me in,

If only a hundred, there I'll be.

If ten stand firm, I'll be the tenth.

And if there's only one, it will be me!