Happy, even in anguish, is he to whom God has given a soul worthy of love and of grief! He who has not seen the things of this world and the hearts of men by this double light has seen nothing, and knows nothing of the truth.
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Victor Hugo on Springtime
Nothing is so worthy of admiration as foliage washed by the rain and wiped by the rays of sunlight; it is warm freshness. The gardens and meadows, having water at their roots, and sun in their flowers, become perfuming-pans of incense, and smoke with all their odors at once. Everything smiles, sings and offers itself. One feels gently intoxicated. The springtime is a provisional paradise, the sun helps man to have patience.
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Victor Hugo on Affirmation
To sum up, no path is left open for thought by a philosophy that makes everything come to but one conclusion, the monosyllable "No." To "No," there is but one reply: "Yes." Nihilism has no scope. There is no nothing. Zero does not exist. Everything is something. Nothing is nothing. Man lives by affirmation even more than he does by bread.