Victor Hugo Quotes
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She was sad with an obscure sadness of which she had not the secret herself. There was in her whole person the stupor of a life ended but never commenced.
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In joined hands there is still some token of hope, in the clenched fist none.
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Civil war.... What did the words mean? Was there any such thing as "foreign war"? Was not all warfare between men warfare between brothers?
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Every idea must have a visible enfolding.
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To have lied is to have suffered.
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The transept belfry and the two towers were to him three great cages, the birds in which, taught by him, would sing for him alone. Yet it was these same bells which had made him deaf; but mothers are often fondest of the child who has made them suffer most.
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There is suffering in the light; in excess it burns. Flame is hostile to the wing. To burn and yet to fly, this is the miracle of genius.
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He would give all of his clothes to his servant, admonishing him NOT to return them until he had completed his day's work.
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Give to a being the useless, and deprive him of the needful, and you have the gamin.
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Every man is a book in which God himself writes.
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You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea. It is the cloud which thunders around everything that shines. Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats. Do no bother yourself about it; disdain. Keep your mind serene as you keep your life clear.
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I exist," murmurs someone whose name is Everyone. "I'm young and in love; I am old and I want rest; I work, I prosper, I do good business, I have houses to rent, money in State Securities; I am happy, I have wife and children; I like all these things and I want to go on living, so leave me alone."... There are moments when all this casts a deep chill on the large-minded pioneers of the human race.
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Now, one cannot read nonsense with impunity.
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Science says the first word on everything, and the last word on nothing.
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Genius is rare because the means of becoming one have not been available.
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Go to sleep in peace. God is awake.
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An increase of tenderness always ended by boiling over and turning to indignation. He was at the point where we seek to adopt a course, and to accept what tears us apart.
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Friendship exists outside our modern economy of scarcity... It's not about apportioning vanishing resources of time and energy. Friendship is a blessed relic of the ancient economy of the gift, and the time freely given to people dear to you actually creates magical abundance.
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Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart. The nearer I approach the end, the plainer I hear around me the immortal symphonies of the worlds which invite me. . . . For half a century I have been writing thoughts in prose, verse, history, drama, romance, tradition, satire, ode, and song. I have tried them all, but I feel I have not said a thousandth part of that which is within me. When I go down to the grave, I can say "I have finished my day's work," but I cannot say "I have finished my life's work."
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Nothing awakens reminiscence like an aroma.
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In short, I am doing what I can, I suffer with the same universal suffering, and I try to assuage it, I possess only the puny forces of a man, and I cry to all: “Help me!
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To rove about, musing, that is to say loitering, is, for a philosopher, a good way of spending time, especially in that kind of mock rurality, ugly but odd, and partaking of two natures, which surrounds certain large cities, particularly Paris.
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It is very fortunate that kings cannot err. Hence their contradictions never perplex us.
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First problem. To produce wealth. Second problem. To distribute it.