June 27, 2009

Les Miserables Preface Quote

So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation which, in the face of civilization, 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 yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, book like this cannot be useless.

Hauteville House 1862

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