Try an author, a thought, or a phrase in “quotes”.↑ ↓ Navigate · Esc Close

Type a word, saying or author to search.

Browse the library ↗

Revolutionists are accused of sowing fear abroad. Every barricade seems a crime. Their theories are incriminated, their aim suspected, their ulterior motive is feared, their conscience denounced. They are reproached with raising, erecting, and heaping up, against the reigning social state, a mass of miseries, of griefs, of iniquities, of wrongs, of despairs, and of tearing from the lowest depths blocks of shadow in order therein to embattle themselves and to combat. People shout to them: “You are tearing up the pavements of hell!” They might reply: “That is because our barricade is made of good intentions.

Revolutionists are accused of sowing fear abroad. Every barricade seems a crime. Their theories are incriminated, their aim suspected, their ulterior motive is feared, their conscience denounced. They are reproached with raising, erecting, and heaping up, against the reigning social state, a mass of miseries, of griefs, of iniquities, of wrongs, of despairs, and of tearing from the lowest depths blocks of shadow in order therein to embattle themselves and to combat. People shout to them: “You are tearing up the pavements of hell!” They might reply: “That is because our barricade is made of good intentions.

Approximate author period: c. 1843 AD · industrial

Meaning not yet available

An individual explanation has not yet been added. We do not substitute a generic description for an interpretation of these particular words.

Begin with source-checked readings and explanations ↗
Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Victor Hugo
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 1843 AD · industrial
author lifetime midpoint (1802–1885)
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
Contributor-provided quotation collection

Supplied reference C; CSV row 313540; supplied attribution, independently unverified

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.