Victor Hugo Quotes
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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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During a wise man's whole life, his destiny holds his philosophy in a state of siege.
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These Greek capitals, black with age, and quite deeply graven in the stone, with I know not what signs peculiar to Gothic calligraphy imprinted upon their forms and upon their attitudes, as though with the purpose of revealing that it had been a hand of the Middle Ages which had inscribed them there, and especially the fatal and melancholy meaning contained in them, struck the author deeply.
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Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart; I breathe at this hour the fragrance of the lilacs, the violets, and the roses, as at twenty years ago.
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Primitive times are lyrical, ancient times epical, modern times dramatic. The ode sings of eternity, the epic imparts solemnity tohistory, the drama depicts life. The characteristic of the first poetry is ingeniousness, of the second, simplicity, of the third, truth.
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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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It is only barbarous nations who have a sudden growth after a victory.
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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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It is a terrible thing to be happy! How pleased we are with it! How all-sufficient we think it! How, being in possession of the false aim of life, happiness, we forget the true aim, duty!
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Now, one cannot read nonsense with impunity.
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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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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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Genius is rare because the means of becoming one have not been available.
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Every man is a book in which God himself writes.
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There are many tongues to talk, and but few heads to think.
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First problem. To produce wealth. Second problem. To distribute it.
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To have lied is to have suffered.
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We need those who pray constantly to compensate for those who do not pray at all.
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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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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.
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It was SHE. Whoever has loved knows all the radiant meaning contained in the three letters of this word ‘she.
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True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do.
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Nothing awakens reminiscence like an aroma.