Victor Hugo Quotes
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Great blunders are often made, like large ropes, of a multitude of fibres.
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Death belongs to God alone; by what right do men touch that unknown thing?
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Homère est un des génies qui résolvent ce beau problème de l’art, le plus beau de tous peut-être, la peinture vraie de l’humanité obtenue par le grandissement de l’homme, c’est-à-dire la génération du réel dans l’idéal.
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Idleness, pleasure, what abysses! To do nothing is a dreary course to take, be sure of it. To live idle upon the substance of society! To be useless, that is to say, noxious! This leads straight to the lowest depth of misery.
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Reality in strong doses frightens.
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Tobacco is the plant that converts thoughts into dreams.
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The left-handed are precious; they take places which are inconvenient for the rest.
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When people look back at their childhood or youth, their wistfulness comes from the memory, not of what their lives had been in those years, but of what life had then promised to be. The expectation of some indefinable splendor, of the unusual, the exciting, the great is an attribute of youth and the process of aging is the process of that expectations' gradual extinction. One does not have to let it happen. But that fire dies for lack of fuel, under the gray weight of disappointments.
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For sight is woman-like and shuns the old.
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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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Every good quality runs into a defect; economy borders on avarice, the generous are not far from the prodigal, the brave man is close to the bully; he who is very pious is slightly sanctimonious; there are just as many vices to virtue as there are holes in the mantle of Diogenes.
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The aim of art is almost divine: to bring to life again if it is writing history, to create if it is writing poetry.
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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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Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars. Cimourdain was full of virtues and truth, but they shine out of a dark background.
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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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God put in man thought; society, action; nature, revery.
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Algebra applies to the clouds.
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Happiness lies for those who cry, those who hurt, those who have searched, and those who have tried for only they can appreciate the importance of people who have touched their lives.
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Ah," cried Gavroche, "what does this mean? It rains again! ...If this continues, I withdraw my subscription.
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When grace combines with wrinkles, it is admirable. There is an indescribable light of dawn about intensely happy old age. . . . The young person is handsome, but the old, superb.
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The repose of darkness is deeper on the water than on the land.
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My revenge is fraternity! No more frontiers! The Rhine for everyone! Let us be the same Republic, let us be the United States of Europe, let us be the continental federation, let us be European liberty, let us be universal peace!
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Nobody loves the light like the blind man.
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The heart becomes heroic through passion. It is no longer composed of anything but what is pure; it no longer rests upon anything but what is elevated and great.