Power is in better health after a revolt, as a man is after a good rubbing down.
 Victor Hugo, Les Misérables (1862). copy citation

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Author Victor Hugo
Source Les Misérables
Topic health power
Date 1862
Language English
Reference
Note Translation by Isabel F. Hapgood in 1887
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/135/135-h/135-h.htm

Context

“It puts the army to the test; it consecrates the bourgeoisie, it draws out the muscles of the police; it demonstrates the force of the social framework. It is an exercise in gymnastics; it is almost hygiene. Power is in better health after a revolt, as a man is after a good rubbing down. Revolt, thirty years ago, was regarded from still other points of view. There is for everything a theory, which proclaims itself “good sense”; Philintus against Alcestis; mediation offered between the false and the true;” source