Quotes by Victor Hugo
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For dogs we kings should have lions, and for cats, tigers. The great benefits a crown.

One drop of wine is enough to redden a whole glass of water.

God made only water, but man made wine.

And must I now begin to doubt -- who never doubted all these years? My heart is stone, and still it trembles. The world I have known is lost in the shadows. Is he from heaven or from hell? And does he know, that granting me my life today, this man has killed me, even so.
- Javert.

The sewer is the conscience of the city.

The world of sleep has an existence of its own.

The delight we inspire in others has this enchanting peculiarity that, far from being diminished like every other reflection, it returns to us more radiant than ever.

To learn to read is to light a fire.

Good actions are the invisible hinges on the doors of heaven.

A republic may be called the climate of civilization.

Something more terrible than a hell where one suffers may be imagined, and that is a hell where one is bored.

The clouds, -- the only birds that never sleep.

If you would civilize a man, begin with his grandmother.

Sleep comes more easily than it returns.

A person may not want any more of his cake; but that is no reason for giving it away.

Oh! if the good hearts had the fat purses, how much better everything would go!

Progress is the stride of God.

Nature is pitiless; she never withdraws her flowers, her music, her fragrance, and her sunlight from before human cruelty or suffering.

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.

What have we to fear, we who believe?

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.

Not being heard is no reason for silence.

I had a dream my life would be different from this hell I am living, so different from what it seemed. Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

Do you hear the people sing? Singing a song of angry men.

There is in every village a torch -- the teacher; and an extinguisher -- the priest.

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

Do you hear the people sing Lost in the valley of the night? It is the music of a people Who are climbing to the light. For the wretched of the earth There is a flame that never dies. Even the darkest night will end And the sun will rise.

Diamonds are to be found only in the darkness of the earth, and truth in the darkness of the mind.

Nothing makes a man so adventurous as an empty pocket.

To die is nothing; but it is terrible not to live.

To commit the least possible sin is the law for man. To live without sin is the dream of an angel. Everything terrestrial is subject to sin. Sin is a gravitation.

Joy is the reflex of terror.

Never, even among animals, does the creature born to be a dove change into an osprey. That is only seen among men.

There is always a patch of blue sky to lovers, although the rest of the world may see nothing but their umbrellas.

During the years of suffering he reachd the conclusion that life was war in which he was one of the defeated. Hatred was his onlt weapon, and he resolved to sharpen it in prison and carry it with him when he left.

I wanted to see you again, touch you, know who you were, see if I would find you identical with the ideal image of you which had remained with me and perhaps shatter my dream with the aid of reality.

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.

But alas, if I have not maintained my victory, it is God's fault for not making man and the devil of equal strength.

Vengeance comes from the individual and punishment from God.

I believe that pity is a law like justice, and that kindness is a duty like uprightness.

There is a material advancement; we desire it. There is, also, a moral grandeur; we hold fast to it.

Woman, nude, is the blue sky. Clouds and garments are an obstacle to contemplation. Beauty and infinity would be gazed upon unveiled.

The country wails, that may be, but humanity applauds. But is it true that the country does wail? France bleeds, but liberty smiles; and in the presence of liberty's smile, France forgets her wound.

He who contemplates the depths of Paris is seized with vertigo.
Nothing is more fantastic. Nothing is more tragic.
Nothing is more sublime.

Strong and rare natures are thus created; misery, almost always a stepmother, is sometimes a mother; privation gives birth to power of soul and mind; distress is the nurse of self-respect; misfortune is a good breast for great souls.

Man is not a circle with a single center; he is an ellipse with two focii. Facts are one, ideas are the other.

You are adorable, mademoiselle. I study your feet with the microscope and your soul with the telescope.

God created the flirt as soon as he made the fool.

If you are stone, be magnetic; if a plant, be sensitive; but if you are human be love.

You ask me what forces me to speak? a strange thing; my conscience.

Word which the finger of God has written on the brow of every man -- hope!

He never went out without a book under his arm, and he often came back with two.

If you look in the eyes of the young, you see flame. If you look in the eyes of the old, you see light.

A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in -- what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.

Music expresses that which cannot be put into words.

Nature, like a kind and smiling mother, lends herself to our dreams and cherishes our fancies.

Melancholy is the happiness of being sad.

No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.

I don't remember which philosopher it was who said: There is never any shortage of old women.

If I speak, I am condemned. If I stay silent, I am damned!

Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.

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

A writer is a world trapped in a person.

Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.

There is only one thing stronger than all the armies of the world: and that is an idea whose time has come.

Do you know what friendship is… it is to be brother and sister; two souls which touch without mingling, two fingers on one hand.

What is more melancholy and more profound than to see a thousand objects for the first and the last time? To travel is to be born and to die at every instant.

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

The boughs, without becoming detached from the trunk grow away from it.

Those who do not weep, do not see.

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

Being good is easy, what is difficult is being just.

There are no weeds, and no worthless men. There are only bad farmers.

Curiosity is gluttony. To see is to devour.

What makes night within us may leave stars.

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

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.

The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved.

Never laugh at those who suffer; suffer sometimes those who laugh.

One believes others will do what he will do to himself.

When liberty returns, I will return.

The drama is complete poetry. The ode and the epic contain it only in germ; it contains both of them in a state of high development, and epitomizes both.

When a man is out of sight, it is not too long before he is out of mind.

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.

Rhyme, that enslaved queen, that supreme charm of our poetry, that creator of our meter.

The learned man knows that he is ignorant.

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

People do not lack strength; they lack will.

Toleration is the best religion.

Wisdom is a sacred communion.

I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses.

Architecture has recorded the great ideas of the human race. Not only every religious symbol, but every human thought has its page in that vast book.

Religions do a useful thing: they narrow God to the limits of man. Philosophy replies by doing a necessary thing: it elevates man to the plane of God.

One of the hardest tasks is to extract continually from one's soul an almost inexhaustible ill will.

Because one doesn't like the way things are is no reason to be unjust towards God.

There have been in this century only one great man and one great thing: Napoleon and liberty. For want of the great man, let us have the great thing.

Idleness is the heaviest of all oppressions.

A creditor is worse than a slave-owner; for the master owns only your person, but a creditor owns your dignity, and can command it.