Victor Hugo Quotes

Victor Hugo

Biography

Type: Writer, Poet, Politician

Born: February 1802,Besançon, Doubs, France

Died: 22 May 1885 (aged 83), Paris, France

Victor Hugo was a French poet, novelist and playwright and a leading supporter of the Romantic Movement in France. He was also a visual artist, statesman and human rights activist, though his fame primarily lies in his poems and dramas.

Victor Hugo Quotes

What Is Love? I have met in the streets a very poor young man who was
What Is Love? I have met in the streets a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul

It is not easy to keep silent when silence is a lie.. Victor Hugo
It is not easy to keep silent when silence is a lie.

The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only.

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved - loved for ourselves,
The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved - loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.

This first glance of a soul which does not yet know itself is like dawn in
This first glance of a soul which does not yet know itself is like dawn in the heavens; it is the awakening of something radiant and unknown.

Friend' is sometimes a word devoid of meaning; enemy, never.. Victor Hugo
Friend' is sometimes a word devoid of meaning; enemy, never.

A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labor and
A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labor and there is invisible labor.

There is in every village a torch- the schoolteacher; and an extinguisher: the priest.. Victor Hugo
There is in every village a torch- the schoolteacher; and an extinguisher: the priest.

You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love, is to live
You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love, is to live by it.

When love has fused and mingled two beings in a sacred and angelic unity, the secret of life has been discovered so far as they are concerned; they are no longer anything more than the two boundaries of the same destiny; they are no longer anything but the two wings of the same spirit. Love, soar.

Love is the only future God offers.. Victor Hugo
Love is the only future God offers.

If people did not love one another, I really don't see what use there would be
If people did not love one another, I really don't see what use there would be in having any spring.

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when
Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.

Not being heard is no reason for silence.. Victor Hugo
Not being heard is no reason for silence.

Those who do not weep, do not see.. Victor Hugo
Those who do not weep, do not see.

Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the
Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees.

Life's great happiness is to be convinced we are loved.. Victor Hugo
Life's great happiness is to be convinced we are loved.

Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet..
Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet.

There are, as we know, powerful and illustrious atheists. At bottom, led back to the truth by their very force, they are not absolutely sure that they are atheists; it is with them only a question of definition, and in any case, if they do not believe in God, being great minds, they prove God.

More powerful than the mighty armies is an idea whose time has come.. Victor Hugo
More powerful than the mighty armies is an idea whose time has come.

When the heart is dry the eye is dry.. Victor Hugo
When the heart is dry the eye is dry.

where the telescope ends the microscope begins, and who can say which has the wider vision?

Sin is a gravitation.

...Nobody knows like a woman how to say things that are both sweet and profound. Sweetness and depth, this is all of woman; this is Heaven.

Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over, this is recognised: that the human race has been harshly treated, but that it has advanced.

A library implies an act of faith which generations, still in darkness hid, sign in their night in witness of the dawn."

À qui la faute? (1872)

Science says the first word on everything, and the last word on nothing.

The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves - say rather, loved in spite of ourselves.

Be happy without picking flaws.. Victor Hugo
Be happy without picking flaws.

Happiness lies for those who cry, those who hurt, those who have searched, and those who have tried for only they can appreciate the importance of people who have touched their lives.

Every day has its great grief or its small anxiety. ... One cloud is dispelled, another forms. There is hardly one day in a hundred of real joy and bright sunshine.

That I may carry on what I have begun, that I may do good, that I may be one day a grand and encouraging example that it may be said that there was finally some little happiness resulting from this suffering which I have undergone and this virtue to which I have returned!

It is nothing to die. It is frightful not to live.

I see black light (his last words)

The guillotine is the ultimate expression of Law, and its name is vengeance; it is not neutral, nor does it allow us to remain neutral.

The pupil dilates in darkness and in the end finds light, just as the soul dilates in misfortune and in the end finds God.

The poor man shuddered, overflowed with an angelic joy; he declared in his transport that this would last through life; he said to himself that he really had not suffered enough to deserve such radiant happiness, and he thanked God, in the depths of his soul, for having permitted that he, a miserable man, should be so loved by this innocent being.

A cannonball travels only two thousand miles an hour; light travels two hundred thousand miles a second. Such is the superiority of Jesus Christ over Napoleon.

There is nothing like a dream to create the future.

The human soul has still greater need of the ideal than of the real. It is by the real that we exist, it is by the ideal that we live.

Should we continue to look upwards? Is the light we can see in the sky one of those which will presently be extinguished? The ideal is terrifying to behold... brilliant but threatened on all sides by the dark forces that surround it: nevertheless, no more in danger than a star in the jaws of the clouds.

In joined hands there is still some token of hope, in the clinched fist none.

Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent

Teach the ignorant as much as you can; society is culpable in not providing a free education for all and it must answer for the night which it produces. If the soul is left in darkness sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.

He who opens a school door, closes a prison.

Common sense is in spite of, not the result of, education.

In every French village there is now a lighted torch, the schoolmaster; and a mouth trying to blow it out, the priest.

À ceux qui ignorent, enseignez-leur [...]
Le coupable n'est pas celui qui y fait le péché, mais celui qui y a fait l'ombre.

Profound hearts, wise minds, take life as God makes it; it is a long trial, and unintelligible preparation for the unknown destiny.

As for methods of prayer, all are good, as long as they are sincere.

The wise man does not grow old, but ripes.

What is admirable in the clash of young minds is that no one can foresee the spark that sets off an explosion or predict what kind of explosion it will be.

Produce una inmensa tristeza pensar que la naturaleza habla mientras el género humano no escucha.

A phenomenon often seen. A sceptic adhering to a believer; that is as simple as the law of the complementary colours. What we lack attracts us. Nobody loves the light like the blind man...

Un sceptique qui adhère à un croyant cela est simple comme la loi des couleurs complémentaires.Ce qui nous manque nous attire.

He loved books; books are cold but safe friends.

Initiative is doing the right thing without being told.

He loved books, those undemanding but faithful friends.

Reason is intelligence taking exercise. Imagination is intelligence with an erection.

Let no one misunderstand our idea; we do not confound what are called 'political opinions' with that grand aspiration after progress with that sublime patriotic, democratic, and human faith, which, in our days, should be the very foundation of all generous intelligence.

A quarter of an hour more of this success, and there won’t be ten cartridges in the barricade.

She had spears of straw and grass in her hair, not like Ophelia gone mad through contact with Hamlet's madness, but because she had slept in some stable loft.

Enjolras caught glimpses of a luminous uprising under the dark skirts of the future.

A criminal remains a criminal whether he uses a convict's suit or a monarch's crown.

The peculiarity of sunrise is to make us laugh at all our terrors of the night, and our laugh is always proportioned to the fear we have had.

Certainly, I approve of political opinions, but there are people who do not know where to stop.

To attempt, to brave, to persist, and persevere, to be faithful to one's self, to wrestle with destiny, to astound the catastrophe by the slight fear which is causes us, now to confront unjust power, again to insult intoxicated victory, to hold firm and withstand - such is the example which nations need and the light which electrifies them.

To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.

People do not read stupidities with impunity.

The beautiful is as useful as the useful." He added after a moment’s silence, "Perhaps more so.

The women laughed and wept; the crowd stamped their feet enthusiastically, for at that moment Quasimodo was really beautiful. He was handsome - this orphan, this foundling, this outcast.

He thought her more beautiful than ever, with a beauty that was at once feminine and angelic, that wholeness of beauty that had moved Petrarch to song and brought Dante to his knees.

Cosette, by learning that she was beautiful, lost the grace of not knowing it; an exquisite grace, for beauty heightened by artlessness is ineffable, and nothing is so adorable as dazzling innocence, going on her way, and holding in her hand, all unconsciousness, the key of a paradise.

J'ai quelque fois rêvé que de temps en temps des heures se détachaient de la vie des anges et venaient ici-bas traverser la destinée des hommes.

Madame Magloire," retorted the Bishop, "you are mistaken. The beautiful is as useful as the useful." He added after a pause, "More so, perhaps.

Si la nature s’appelle providence, la société doit s’appeler prévoyance.

Wonderful nature has a double meaning, which dazzles great minds and blinds uncultivated souls. When man is ignorant, when the desert is filled with visions, the darkness of solitude is added to the darkness of intelligence; hence, in man, the possibilities of perdition

He fell to the seat, she by his side. There were no more words. The stars were beginning to shine. How was it that their lips met? How is it that the birds sing, the the snow melts, that the rose opens, that May blooms, that the dawn whitens behind the black trees on the shivering summit of the hills?

People are unlearning certain things, and they do well, provided that, while unlearning them they learn this: There is no vacuum in the human heart. Certain demolitions take place, and it is well that they do, but on condition that they are followed by reconstructions.

The realities of life do not allow themselves to be forgotten.

There is neither a foreign war nor a civil war; there is only just and unjust war.

A day will come when there will be no battlefields, but markets opening to commerce and minds opening to ideas.

Let us show that, if the people abandon the republicans, the republicans do not abandon the people.

Civil war? What does that mean? Is there any foreign war? Isn't every war fought between men, between brothers?

His judgement demonstrates that one can be a genius and understand nothing of an art that is not one's own.

Let us study things that are no more. It is necessary to understand them, if only to avoid them.

History has its truth, and so has legend. Legendary truth is of another nature than historical truth. Legendary truth is invention whose result is reality. Furthermore, history and legend have the same goal; to depict eternal man beneath momentary man.

What is history? An echo of the past in the future; a reflex from the future on the past.

Phoebus de Chateaupers likewise came to a 'tragic end': he married.

Do not economize on the hymeneal rites; do not prune them of their splendor, nor split farthings on the day when you are radiant. A wedding is not house-keeping.

Ladies, a second piece of advice-do not marry; marriage is a graft; it may take hold or not. Shun the risk.

That you are happy, that Monsieur Pontmercy has Cosette, that youth espouses mourning, that there are about you, my children, lilacs and nightingales, that your life is a beautiful lawn in the sunshine, that all the enchantments of heaven fill your souls, and now, that I who am good for nothing, that I die; surely all this is well.

He left her. She was dissatisfied with him. He had preferred to incur her anger rather than cause her pain. He had kept all the pain for himself.

You always have everything better than the rest, even pain.

The soul that loves and suffers is in the sublime state.

At the side of Enjolras, who represented the logic of revolution, was Combeferre, representing its philosophy. The difference between logic and philosophy is that one can decide upon war, whereas the other can only be fulfilled by peace.

There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.

L'homme n'est pas un cercle à un seul centre ; c'est une ellipse à deux foyers. Les faits sont l'un, les idées sont l'autre.

I advance in life, I grow more simple, and I become more and more patriotic for humanity.

I repeat, whether we be Italians or Frenchmen, misery concerns us all.

Ever since history has been written, ever since philosophy has meditated, misery has been the garment of the human race.

Dream no small dreams. They have no power to stir the hearts of men.

Sans la moindre métaphore et dans toute l'acception du mot, vivre, c'est brûler.

Flat ubi vult

. . .where there is no more hope, song remains.

Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.

As for us, we respect the past here and there, and we spare it, above all, provided that it consents to be dead. If it insists on being alive, we attack it, and we try to kill it.

In love there are no friends everywhere where there is a pretty woman hostility is open.

Les bras d'une mère sont faits de tendresse et un doux sommeil benit l'enfant qui s'y abandonne.

In the morning, when he entered my room, I grumbled, but he was like the sunlight to me, all the same. One cannot defend oneself against those brats. They take hold of you, they hold you fast, they never let you go again. The truth is, that there never was a cupid like that child.

Mother's arms are made of tenderness, and sweet sleep blesses the child who lies within.

On résiste à l'invasion des armées; on ne résiste pas à l'invasion des idées.

(One resists the invasion of armies; one does not resist the invasion of ideas.)

There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.

Penser, voilà le triomphe vrai de l’âme.

L'âme qui aime et qui souffre est à l'état sublime.

Happy, even in anguish, is he to whom God has given a soul worthy of love and grief! He who has not seen the things of this world, and the heart of men in this double light, has seen nothing, and knows noting of the truth.

There is a prospect greater than the sea, and that is the sky; there is a prospect greater than the sky, and it is the human soul.

L’excès de la lâcheté a aussi son courage.

Death does not concern me. He who takes his first step uses perhaps his last shoes. (Halmalo)

En France, que de gens à longues oreilles : ânes en littérature, lièvres en politique !

Joy is the reflex of terror.

In the chaos of sentiments and passions which defend a barricade, there is something of everything; there is bravery, youth, honor, enthusiasm, the ideal, conviction, the eager fury of the gamester, and above all, intervals of hope.

Common right is nought but the protection of all radiating over the right of each. This protection of all is termed Fraternity. The point of intersection of all these aggregated sovereignties is called Society. This intersection being a junction, this point is a knot. Hence comes what is called the social tie.

With the exercise of a little care, the nettle could be made useful; it is neglected and it becomes hurtful. It is exterminated. How many men resemble the nettle!" He added with a pause: "Remember this, my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators.

As with stomachs, we should pity minds that do not eat.

He was troubled; this brain, so limpid in its blindness, had lost its transparency; there was a cloud in this crystal.

Great griefs exhaust. They discourage us with life. The man into whom they enter feels something taken from him. In youth, their visit is sad; later on, it is ominous.

Emergencies have always been necessary to progress. It was darkness which produced the lamp. It was fog that produced the compass. It was hunger that drove us to exploration. And it took a depression to teach us the real value of a job.

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