A quotation from Victor Hugo

To be lost in thought is not to be idle. There is visible work and invisible work. To contemplate is to toil, to think is to do.
 
[On n’est pas inoccupé parce qu’on est absorbé. Il y a le labeur visible et le labeur invisible. Contempler, c’est labourer; penser, c’est agir.]

Victor Hugo (1802-1885) French writer
Les Misérables, Part 2 “Cosette,” Book 7 “A Parenthesis,” ch. 8 (2.7.8) (1862) [tr. Donougher (2013)]

Sourcing, notes, alternate translations: wist.info/hugo-victor/74464/

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A quotation from Iain Banks

   Dessous roared with laughter. “Telman! I can’t believe I’m having to tell you this, but life isn’t fair!”
   “No, the world isn’t fair, the universe isn’t fair. Physics, chemistry and mathematics, they aren’t fair. Or unfair, for that matter. Fairness is an idea, and only conscious creatures have ideas. That’s us. We have ideas about right and wrong. We invent the idea of justice so that we can judge whether something is good or bad. We develop morality. We create rules to live by and call them laws, all to make life more fair.”

Iain Banks (1954-2013) Scottish author
The Business, ch. 5 (1999)

Sourcing, notes: wist.info/banks-iaian/74470/

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