Victor Hugo Quotes
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But secondly you say 'society must exact vengeance, and society must punish'. Wrong on both counts. Vengeance comes from the individual and punishment from God.
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God became man, granted. The devil became a woman.
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There comes an hour when protest no longer suffices; after philosophy there must be action; the strong hand finishes what the idea has sketched.
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Die, very good, but do not make others die. Suicides like the one which is about to take place here are sublime, but suicide is restricted, and does not allow of extension; and so soon as it affects your neighbors, suicide becomes murder.
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Need is a low door which, when we must by stern necessity pass through, forces the greatest to bend down the most.
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A writer is a world trapped in a person.
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Houses are like the human beings that inhabit them.
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That is the explanation of war, an outrage by humanity upon humanity in despite of humanity.
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His universal compassion was due less to natural instinct, than to a profound conviction, a sum of thoughts that in the course of living had filtered through to his heart: for in the nature of man, as in rock, there may be channels hollowed by the dropping of water, and these can never be destroyed.
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Seeing so much poverty everywhere makes me think that God is not rich. He gives the appearance of it, but I suspect some financial difficulties.
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Women are more credulous than men.
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Nothing is really small; whoever is open to the deep penetration of nature knows this.
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I'd rather be hissed at for a good verse, than applauded for a bad one.
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People generally will soon understand that writers should be judged, not according to rules and species, which are contrary to nature and art, but according to the immutable principles of the art of composition, and the special laws of their individual temperaments.
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What is called honors and dignities, and even honor and dignity, is generally fool's gold.
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Babylon violated diminishes Alexander; Rome enslaved diminishes Caesar; massacred Jerusalem diminishes Titus. Tyranny follows the tyrant. Woe to the man who leaves behind a shadow that bears his form.
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Civilization survives on the constant discovery of amity and an equal supply of damnation.
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There is but one way of refusing To-morrow, that is to die.
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I write with one hand, but I fight with both.
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Yes, instruction! Light! Light! Everything comes from light, and to everything it returns.
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There are moments when a rope's end, a pole, the branch of the tree, is life itself, and it is a frightful thing to see a living being lose his hold upon it, and fall like a ripe fruit.
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If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness.
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All roads are blocked to a philosophy which reduces everything to the word "no." To "no" there is only one answer and that is "yes." Nihilism has no substance. There is no such thing as nothingness, and zero does not exist. Everything is something. Nothing is nothing. Man lives more by affirmation than by bread.
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Melancholy is the happiness of being sad.