Plea Against the Death Penalty
Look, examine, reflect. You hold capital punishment up as an example. Why? Because of what it teaches. And just what is it that you wish to teach by means of this example? That thou shalt not kill. And how do you teach that "thou shalt not kill"? By killing.
I have examined the death penalty under each of its two aspects: as a direct action, and as an indirect one. What does it come down to? Nothing but something horrible and useless, nothing but a way of shedding blood that is called a crime when an individual commits it, but is (sadly) called "justice" when society brings it about. Make no mistake, you lawmakers and judges, in the eyes of God as in those of conscience, what is a crime when individuals do it is no less an offense when society commits the deed.
When a man is out of sight, it is not too long before he is out of mind.
Victor HugoThere is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.
Victor HugoPeople do not lack strength, they lack will.
Victor HugoYou who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love, is to live by it.
Victor HugoTags: love
Morality is truth in full bloom.
Victor HugoTags: les-miserables
Monsieur' to a convict is a glass of water to a man dying of thirst at sea; ignominy thirsts for respect.
Victor HugoWhat matters deafness of the ear, when the mind hears? The one true deafness, the incurable deafness, is that of the mind.
Victor HugoReason is intelligence taking exercise. Imagination is intelligence with an erection.
Victor HugoTags: imagination intelligence reason
So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilisation, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine, with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the age — the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of woman by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night — are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.
Victor HugoTags: inspirational introduction preface
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