Quotes About Destiny

Every man who has in his soul a secret feeling of revolt against any act of the State, of life, or of destiny, is on the verge of riot; and so soon as it appears, he begins to quiver, and to feel himself borne away by the whirlwind.

Marius and Cosette did not ask where this would lead them. They looked at themselves as arrived. It is a strange pretension for men to ask that love should lead them somewhere.

For with love there is no middle course: it destroys, or else it saves. All human destiny is contained in that dilemma, the choice between destruction and salvation, which is nowhere more implacably posed than in love. Love is life, or it is death. It is the cradle, but also the coffin. One and the same impulse moves the human heart to say yes or no. Of all things God has created it is the human heart that sheds the brightest light and, alas, the blackest despair.

if she had not been a gypsy, and if he had not been a priest

L'istinto di Cosette cercava un padre, come quello di Valjean cercava un figlio, e incontrarsi, per essi, significò trovarsi; nel momento misterioso in cui le loro mani s'incontrarono, si saldarono. Quando quelle due anime si scorsero, riconobbero di essere ciascuna quel che abbisognava all'altra e s'abbracciarono strettamente.

It was all over with him. Marius loved a woman. His destiny was entering upon the unknown.

To attempt, to brave, to persist, and persevere, to be faithful to one's self, to wrestle with destiny, to astound the catastrophe by the slight fear which is causes us, now to confront unjust power, again to insult intoxicated victory, to hold firm and withstand -- such is the example which nations need and the light which electrifies them.

There is will in the thought, there is none in the dream. The dream, which is completely spontaneous, takes and keeps, even in the gigantic and the ideal, the form of our mind. Nothing springs more directly and more sincerely from the very bottom of our souls than our unreflected and indefinite aspirations towards the splendours of destiny.

Carve as we will the mysterious block of which our life is made, the black vein of destiny constantly reappears in it.

Be it true or false, what is said about men often has as much influence upon their lives, and especially upon their destinies, as what they do.

We chip away as best we can at the mysterious block of marble our lives are made of- in vain; the black vein of destiny always reappears.

Hope is the Word which God has written on the brow of every man.

C'est une étrange prétention des hommes de vouloir que l'amour conduise quelque part

God decreed that the love which came to Cosette was a love that saves.

It is an error to imagine that fate can be exhausted, and that one has reached the bottom of anything whatever.

Catastrophes have a somber way of arranging things.

Do what we may to shape the mysterious stuff of which our lives are composed, the dark threads of our destiny will always re-emerge.

Who can be sure that Jean Valjean had not been on the verge of losing heart and giving up the struggle? In loving he recovered his strength. But the truth is that he was no less vulnerable than Cosette. He protected her and she sustained him. Thanks to him she could go forward into life, and thanks to her he could continue virtous. He was the child's support and she his mainstay. Sublime, unfathomable marvel of the balance of destiny!

Or, donner la grosse cloche en mariage à Quasimodo, c'était donner Juliette à Roméo.

Above all, you can believe in Providence in either of two ways, either as thirst believes in the orange, or as the ass believes in the whip.

Sad fate! he would enter into sanctity only in the eyes of God when he returned to infamy in the eyes of men.

Jehan, Jehan! All this will have a bad end. It'll have had a good beginning.

The unforeseen, that strange, haughty power which plays with man, had seized Gauvain and held him fast.

Was there a voice that whispered in his ear that he had just passed the most solemn moment of his destiny, that there was no longer a middle course for him; that from now on, he would either be the best of men or he would be the worst of men; that he now had to rise higher, so to speak, than the bishop or fall even lower than the galley slave; that if he wanted to be good, he had to be an angel; that if he wanted to stay bad, he had to be a monster from hell?