Victor Hugo Quotes

He who opens a school door, closes a prison.

As for the author, he is profoundly unaware of what the classical or romantic genre might consist of.... In literature, as in allthings, there is only the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the true and the false.

One can resist the invasion of an army but one cannot resist the invasion of ideas.

We are all under sentence of death, but with a sort of indefinite reprieve.

So long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Miserables cannot fail to be of use.

A stand can be made against invasion by an army; no stand can be made against invasion by an idea.

In 1815, M. Charles-Francois-Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of D—— He was an old man of about seventy-five years of age; he had occupied the see of D—— since 1806.

If he had had all Peru in his pocket, he would certainly have given it to this dancer; but Gringoire had not Peru in his pocket; and besides, America was not yet discovered. (p. 66)

The most powerful symptom of love is a tenderness which becomes at times almost insupportable.

We would be ashamed of our best behavior if the people knew the motives of our behaving so.

My misfortune is that I still resemble a man too much. I should liked to be wholly a beast like that goat. - Quasimodo

Love that is not jealous is neither true nor pure.

Nothing makes a man so adventurous as an empty pocket.

The man who fights against his own country is never a hero.

Cheerfulness is like money well expended in charity; the more we dispense of it, the greater our possession.

The peasants of the Asturias believe that in every litter of wolves there is one pup that is killed by the mother for fear that on growing up it would devour the other little ones.

As we have said, robust souls are sometimes almost, but not entirely, overthrown by strokes of misfortune....Despair has steps leading upward. From total depression we rise to despondency, from despondency to affliction, from affliction to melancholy. Melancholy is a twilight state in which suffering transmutes into a somber joy....Melancholy is the enjoyment of being sad.

You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving. The great acts of love are done by those who are habitually performing small acts of kindness. We pardon to the extent that we love. Love is knowing that even when you are alone, you will never be lonely again. & great happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved. Loved for ourselves. & even loved in spite of ourselves.

...mothers are often fondest of the child which has caused them the greatest pain.

To love or have loved is all-sufficing. We must not ask for more. No other pearl is to be found in the shadowfolds of life. To love is an accomplishment.

To rise at six, to dine at ten,To sup at six, to sleep at ten,Makes a man live for ten times ten.

Do not let it be your aim to be something, but to be someone.

When, like an Emir of tyrannic power,Sirius appears, and on the horizon blackBids countless stars pursue their mighty track.

Babylon violated diminishes Alexander; Rome enslaved diminishes Caesar; massacred Jerusalem diminishes Titus. Tyranny follows the tyrant. Woe to the man who leaves behind a shadow that bears his form.

The left-handed are precious; they take places which are inconvenient for the rest.

Love, in the eyes of the world, is either a carnal appetite or a vague fancy, which possession extinguishes or absence destroys. That is why it is commonly said, with a strange abuse of words, that passion does not endure.

Let us say it now: to be blind and to be loved, is indeed, upon this earth where nothing is complete, one of the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness.

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

There are no rules for felicity.

The paradise of the rich is made out of the hell of the poor.

The rich's paradise was created by the poor's hell.

Friendship exists outside our modern economy of scarcity... It's not about apportioning vanishing resources of time and energy. Friendship is a blessed relic of the ancient economy of the gift, and the time freely given to people dear to you actually creates magical abundance.

If you want to civilize a man, begin with his grandmother.

In Shakespeare the birds sing, the bushes are clothed with green, hearts love, souls suffer, the cloud wanders, it is hot, it is cold, night falls, time passes, forests and multitudes speak, the vast eternal dream hovers over all. Sap and blood, all forms of the multiple reality, actions and ideas, man and humanity, the living and the life, solitudes, cities, religions, diamonds and pearls, dung-hills and charnelhouses, the ebb and flow of beings, the steps of comers and goers, all, all are on Shakespeare and in Shakespeare.

When a woman is talking to you, listen to what she says with her eyes.

Every step which the intelligence of Europe has taken has been in spite of the clerical party.

You look at a star for two reasons, because it is luminous, and because it is impenetrable. You have beside you a sweeter radiance and a greater mystery, woman.

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.

The sunshine was delightful, the foliage gently astir, more from the activity of birds than from the breeze. One gallant little bird, doubtless lovelorn, was singing his heart out at the top of a tall tree.

Do not ask the name of the person who seeks a bed for the night. He who is reluctant to give his name is the one who most needs shelter.

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.

He does not weep who does not see.

Mothers arms are made of tenderness, And sweet sleep blesses the child who lies therein.

Take all reasonable advantage of that which the present may offer you. It is the only time which is ours. Yesterday is buried forever, and to-morrow we may never see.

The little people must be sacred to the big ones, and it is from the rights of the weak that the duty of the strong is comprised.

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.

He had slipped, climbed, rolled, searched, walked, persevered, that is all. Such is the secret of all triumphs.

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

The most ferocious animals are disarmed by caresses to their young.

Inspiration and genius -one and the same.

We do not comprehend everything, but we insult nothing.

There shall be no slavery of the mind.

When a person opens a book, he can never be in prison.

We see past time in a telescope and present time in a microscope. Hence the apparent enormities of the present.

Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.

I think I missed my calling. I should have been an interior decorator.

The death agony of the barricade was about to begin.For, since the preceding evening, the two rows of houses in the Rue de la Chanvrerie had become two walls; ferocious walls, doors closed, windows closed, shutters closed. A house is an escarpment, a door is a refusal, a facade is a wall. This wall hears, sees and will not. It might open and save you. No. This wall is a judge. It gazes at you and condemns you. What dismal things are closed houses.

Homer is one of the men of genius who solve that fine problem of art - the finest of all, perhaps - truly to depict humanity by the enlargement of man: that is, to generate the real in the ideal.

Where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incident, chaos will soon reign.

A war between Europeans is a civil war.