Victor Hugo Quotes
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A man without a woman is like a pistol without a trigger; it is the woman who makes the man go off.
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The owl goes not into the nest of the lark.
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The English took the eagle and Austrians the eaglet. [Fr., L'Angleterre prit l'aigle, et l'Autriche l'aiglon.]
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Death belongs to God alone; by what right do men touch that unknown thing?
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Every bird which flies has the thread of the infinite in its claw.
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Can human nature ever be wholly and radically transformed? Can the man whom God made good be made wicked by man? Can the soul be reshaped in its entirety by destiny and made evil because destiny is evil? Can the heart become misshapen and afflicted with ugly, incurable deformities under disproportionate misfortune, like a spinal column bent beneath a too low roof?
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En somme, je fais ce que je peux, je souffre de la souffrance universelle, et je tâche de la soulager, je n'ai que les chétives forces d'un homme, et je crie à tous: aidez-moi.
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Curiosity is gluttony. To see is to devour.
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A day will come when markets, open to trade, and minds, open to ideas, will become the sole battlefield.
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The left-handed are precious; they take places which are inconvenient for the rest.
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Let us study things that are no more. It is necessary to understand them, if only to avoid them.
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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.
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True thinkers are characterized by a blending of clearness and mystery.
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I repeat, whether we be Italians or Frenchmen, misery concerns us all.
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The convent is supreme egotism resulting in supreme self-denial.
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Forget not, never forget that you have promised me to use this silver to become an honest man.... Jean Valjean, my brother: you belong no longer to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I am buying for you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God!
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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.
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Great blunders are often made, like large ropes, of a multitude of fibers. Take the cable thread by thread, take separately all the little determining motives, you break them one after another, and you say: that is all! Wind them and twist them together, they become an enormity.
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Great grief is a divine and terrible radiance which transfigures the wretched.
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Reality in strong doses frightens.
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In joined hands there is still some token of hope, in the clenched fist none.
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Have no fear of robbers or murderers. They are external dangers, petty dangers. We should fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices the real murderers. The great dangers are within us. Why worry about what threatens our heads or our purses? Let us think instead of what threatens our souls.
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La musique...est la vapeur de l’art. Elle est à la poésie ce que la rêverie est à la pensée, ce que le fluide est au liquide, ce que l’océan des nuées est à l’océan des ondes.
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Monastic incarceration is castration.