Famous Quotes by Victor Hugo

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  • There exists, at the bottom of all abasement and misfortune, a last extreme which rebels and... More
  • The Parisian is to the French what the Athenian was to the Greeks: no one sleeps better than he,... More
  • It is not enough for us to prostrate ourselves under the tree which is Creation, and to... More
  • The three great problems of this century, the degradation of man in the proletariat, the... More
  • Let us have compassion for those under chastisement. Alas, who are we ourselves? Who am I and who... More
  • The greatest blunders, like the thickest ropes, are often compounded of a multitude of strands.... More
  • Nothing can be more depressing than to expose, naked to the light of thought, the hideous growth... More
  • Most commonly revolt is born of material circumstances; but insurrection is always a moral... More
  • Scepticism, that dry caries of the intelligence. More
  • Whenever we encounter the Infinite in man, however imperfectly understood, we treat it with... More
  • Mankind is not a circle with a single center but an ellipse with two focal points of which facts... More
  • Monasticism, as it existed in Spain and still exists in Tibet, is a wasting disease of... More
  • Do not ask the name of the person who seeks a bed for the night. He who is reluctant to give his... More
  • Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled. From that divine tear and from that human smile is derived the grace... More
  • As a means of contrast with the sublime, the grotesque is, in our view, the richest source that... More
  • A language does not become fixed. The human intellect is always on the march, or, if you prefer,... More
  • People generally will soon understand that writers should be judged, not according to rules and... More
  • The earlier works of a man of genius are always preferred to the newer ones, in order to prove... More
  • For true poetry, complete poetry, consists in the harmony of contraries. Hence, it is time to say... More
  • Sublime upon sublime scarcely presents a contrast, and we need a little rest from everything,... More
  • Taste is the common sense of genius. More
  • Rhyme, that enslaved queen, that supreme charm of our poetry, that creator of our meter. More
  • The beautiful has but one type, the ugly has a thousand. More
  • The ode lives upon the ideal, the epic upon the grandiose, the drama upon the real. More
  • The aim of art is almost divine: to bring to life again if it is writing history, to create if it... More
  • The drama is complete poetry. The ode and the epic contain it only in germ; it contains both of... More
  • Primitive times are lyrical, ancient times epical, modern times dramatic. The ode sings of... More
  • When liberty returns, I will return. More
  • Popularity? It’s glory’s small change. More
  • The mountains, the forest, and the sea, render men savage; they develop the fierce, but yet do... More
  • Men like me are impossible until the day when they become necessary. More
  • It is the end. But of what? The end of France? No. The end of kings? Yes. More
  • A war between Europeans is a civil war. More
  • I refuse the oration of all churches. I ask a prayer of all souls. I believe in God. More
  • Freedom in art, freedom in society, this is the double goal towards which all consistent and... More
  • An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not the invasion of ideas. More
  • Because one doesn’t like the way things are is no reason to be unjust towards God. More
  • To rise from error to truth is rare and beautiful. More
  • Blessed be Providence which has given to each his toy: the doll to the child, the child to the... More
  • The spirit of God, like the sun, always gives all its light at once. The spirit of man resembles... More
  • There have been in this century only one great man and one great thing: Napoléon and liberty.... More
  • The most excellent symbol of the people is the paving stone. One walks on it until it falls on... More
  • The man who does not know other languages, unless he is a man of genius, necessarily has... More
  • God has bestowed two gifts on man: hope and ignorance. Ignorance is the better of the two. More
  • The last resort of kings, the cannonball. The last resort of the people, the paving stone. More
  • The word is the Verb, and the Verb is God. More
  • This book should be read as one would read the book of a dead man. More
  • I am an intelligent river which has reflected successively all the banks before which it has... More
  • Superstition, bigotry and prejudice, ghosts though they are, cling tenaciously to life; they are... More
  • Thought is the work of the intellect, reverie is its self-indulgence. To substitute day-dreaming... More
  • To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark. More
  • France is a people of the same quality as Greece and Italy. She is Athenian in beauty and Roman... More
  • Well, for us, in history where goodness is a rare pearl, he who was good almost takes precedence... More
  • One is not idle because one is absorbed. There is both visible and invisible labor. To... More
  • Many great actions are committed in small struggles. More
  • It is the essence of truth that it is never excessive. Why should it exaggerate? There is that... More
  • From the oyster to the eagle, from the swine to the tiger, all animals are to be found in men and... More
  • All roads are blocked to a philosophy which reduces everything to the word “no.” To “no”... More
  • No one can keep a secret better than a child. More
  • We say that slavery has vanished from European civilization, but this is not true. Slavery still... More
  • The convent, which belongs to the West as it does to the East, to antiquity as it does to the... More
  • Nations, like stars, are entitled to eclipse. All is well, provided the light returns and the... More
  • Such is the remorseless progression of human society, shedding lives and souls as it goes on its... More
  • To rescue from oblivion even a fragment of a language which men have used and which is in danger... More
  • Progress is the life-style of man. The general life of the human race is called Progress, and so... More
  • In this world, which is so plainly the antechamber of another, there are no happy men. The true... More
  • The book which the reader now holds in his hands, from one end to the other, as a whole and in... More
  • Close by the Rights of Man, at the least set beside them, are the Rights of the Spirit. More
  • We may remark in passing that to be blind and beloved may, in this world where nothing is... More
  • We are on the side of religion as opposed to religions, and we are among those who believe in the... More
  • A saint addicted to excessive self-abnegation is a dangerous associate; he may infect you with... More
  • Despots play their part in the works of thinkers. Fettered words are terrible words. The writer... More
  • A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil. More
  • One cannot be a good historian of the outward, visible world without giving some thought to the... More
  • We have suffered much, we have worked much, we have made much effort to redeem, in the eyes of... More
  • Perseverance, secret of all triumphs. More
  • To give thanks in solitude is enough. Thanksgiving has wings and goes where it must go. Your... More
  • Almost all our desires, when examined, contain something too shameful to reveal. More
  • It is most pleasant to commit a just action which is disagreeable to someone whom one does not like. More
  • One of the hardest tasks is to extract continually from one’s soul an almost inexhaustible ill... More
  • The flesh is the surface of the unknown. More
  • I am a soul. I know well that what I shall render up to the grave is not myself. That which is... More
  • Strange to say, the luminous world is the invisible world; the luminous world is that which we do... More
  • Man does not understand nor accept immortality except on condition of self-remembrance. More
  • Our life dreams the Utopia. Our death achieves the Ideal. More
  • To introduce a new play only six weeks after another has been banned is also a way to speak... More
  • Separated lovers cheat absence by a thousand fancies which have their own reality. They are... More
  • There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body,... More
  • A creditor is worse than a slave-owner; for the master owns only your person, but a creditor owns... More
  • Let us say it now: to be blind and to be loved, is indeed, upon this earth where nothing is... More
  • When God desires to destroy a thing, he entrusts its destruction to the thing itself. Every bad... More
  • I imagine, on the benches of an assembly, the most intrepid of thinkers, a brilliant mind, one of... More
  • We declare therefore, we declare simply this, that on the 20th of December, 1851,... M. Bonaparte... More
  • There is a sacred horror about everything grand. It is easy to admire mediocrity and hills; but... More
  • As for the author, he is profoundly unaware of what the classical or romantic genre might consist... More
  • Mother’s arms are made of tenderness,
    And sweet sleep blesses the child who lies therein. More
  • Amnesty is as good for those who give it as for those who receive it. It has the admirable... More
  • Religions do a useful thing: they narrow God to the limits of man. Philosophy replies by doing a... More
  • God secludes Himself; but the thinker listens at the door. More
  • I put a Phrygian cap on the old dictionary. More
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