Victor Hugo Quotes

Reality in strong doses frightens.

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

The ox suffers, the cart complains.

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.

If nobody loved, the sun would go out.

It is often our best friends who throw us down.

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

The flesh is the upper surface of the unknown.

It was SHE. Whoever has loved knows all the radiant meaning contained in the three letters of this word ‘she.

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

The wind of revolutions is not tractable.

I refuse the oration of all churches. I ask a prayer of all souls. I believe in God.

Revery, which is thought in its nebulous state, borders closely upon the land of sleep, by which it is bounded as by a natural frontier.

I will be Chateaubriand or nothing.

To love is the half of to believe.

What is said about men often has as much influence upon their lives, and especially upon their destinies, as what they do.

He is the best gentleman that is the son of his own deserts, and not the degenerated heir of another's virtue.

where would the shout of love begin, if not from the summit of sacrifice?

A woman's best qualities are harmful if undiluted with prudence.

No one can keep a secret better than a child.

To think of shadows is a serious thing.

To be perfectly happy it does not suffice to possess happiness, it is necessary to have deserved it.

M. Myriel had to undergo the fate of every newcomer in a little town, where there are many mouths which talk, and very few heads which think.

At the moment when her eyes closed, when all feeling vanished in her, she thought that she felt a touch of fire imprinted on her lips, a kiss more burning than the red-hot iron of the executioner.

It is sad to tell, but after having tried society, which had caused his misfortune, he tried Providence which created society, and condemned it also.

What love commences can be finished by God alone.

by making himself a priest made himself a demon.

Every bird which flies has the thread of the infinite in its claw.

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

Despotism is a long crime.

A one-eyed man is much more incomplete than a blind man, for he knows what it is that's lacking.

...But listen, there will be more joy in heaven over the tears of a repentant sinner than over the white robes of a hundred just men.

Of all the things that God has made, the human heart is the one which sheds the most light, alas! and the most darkness.

To be wicked does not insure prosperity - for the inn did not succeed well.

True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do.

Great blunders are often made, like large ropes, of a multitude of fibres.

We do not comprehend everything, but we insult nothing.

On this point, the priest and the philosopher agree: We must die.

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.

The holy law of Jesus Christ governs our civilisation, but it does not yet permeate it.

The onward march of the human race requires that the heights around it constantly blaze with noble lessons of courage. Deeds of daring dazzle history and form one of man's guiding lights.

Those who pray always are necessary to those who never pray. In our view, the whole question is in the amount of thought that is mingled with prayer.

We are for religion against the religions.

All roads are blocked to a philosophy which reduces everything to the word 'no.' To 'no' there is only one answer and that is 'yes.

A strange thing has happened, do you know? I am in darkness. There is a person who, departing, took away the sun.

Genius: the superhuman in man.

Genius is rare because the means of becoming one have not been available

When we are at the end of life, to die means to go away; when we are at the beginning, to go away means to die.

When the heart is dry the eye is dry.

Be happy without picking flaws.