Echoes
Victor Hugo
1862
“He was that child's stay, and she was his prop. Thanks to him, she could walk through life; thanks to her, he could continue in virtue.”
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Withdraw into yourself as much as you can. Associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve.
Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness, and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love.
How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.
It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers. The more solitary I am, the more affection I have for them.
Of all the means which wisdom acquires to ensure happiness throughout the whole of life, by far the most important is friendship.
Be of one mind and one faith, that you may conquer your enemies and lead long and happy lives.
Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more.
Parents love their children as themselves; for their issue are by virtue of their separate existence a sort of other selves.
Out of my experience, such as it is (and it is limited enough) one fixed conclusion dogmatically emerges, and that is this, that we with our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their leaves. ... But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom. Just so there is a continuum of cosmic consciousness, against which our individuality builds but accidental fences, and into which our several minds plunge as into a mother-sea or reservoir.
Reaching the summit of a mountain gives great satisfaction, but nothing for me has been more rewarding in life than the result of our climb on Everest, when we have devoted ourselves to the welfare of our Sherpa friends.
Friendship with oneself is all-important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.
It is natural for a man's character and actions to be influenced by his friends and associates and for him to follow the local norms of behavior. Therefore, he should associate with the righteous and be constantly in the company of the wise, so as to learn from their deeds. Conversely, he should keep away from the wicked who walk in darkness, so as not to learn from their deeds.
Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference.
It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.
We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to learn to live together and if we are to live together we have to talk.
For one man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole.
He who remembers the evils he has undergone, and those that have threatened him, and the slight causes that have changed him from one state to another, prepares himself in that way for future changes and for recognizing his condition. The life of Caesar has no more to show us than our own; an emperor's or an ordinary man's, it is still a life subject to all human accidents.
Friendship and domestic happiness are continually praised; yet how little is there of either in the world, because it requires more cultivation of mind to keep awake affection, even in our own hearts, than the common run of people suppose. Besides, few like to be seen as they really are; and a degree of simplicity, and of undisguised confidence, which, to uninterested observers, would almost border on weakness, is the charm, nay the essence of love or friendship, all the bewitching graces of childhood again appearing.
Loneliness is the penalty of leadership, but the man who has to make the decisions is assisted greatly if he feels that there is no uncertainty in the minds of those who follow him, and that his orders will be carried out confidently and in expectation of success.
The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.
The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us, thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing. The trees wave and the flowers bloom in our bodies as well as our souls, and every bird song, wind song, and tremendous storm song of the rocks in the heart of the mountains is our song, our very own, and sings our love.
Only if we understand can we care. Only if we care will we help. Only if we help shall they be saved.
A friend is one soul abiding in two bodies.