Victor Hugo Quotes
-
I didn't believe it could be so monstrous. It's wrong to be so absorbed in divine law as not to perceive human law. Death belongs to God alone. By what right do men tough that unknown thing?
-
Success is a very hideous thing. Its false resemblance to merit deceives men.
-
What makes night within us may leave stars.
-
I think, therefore I doubt.
-
Solitude either develops the mental power, or renders men dull and vicious.
-
The beginning as well as the end of all his thoughts was hatred of human law, that hatred which, if it be not checked in its growth by some providential event, becomes, in a certain time, hatred of society, then hatred of the human race, and then hatred of creation, and reveals itself by a vague and incessant desire to injure some living being, it matters not who.
-
In Shakespeare the birds sing, the bushes are clothed with green, hearts love, souls suffer, the cloud wanders, it is hot, it is cold, night falls, time passes, forests and multitudes speak, the vast eternal dream hovers over all. Sap and blood, all forms of the multiple reality, actions and ideas, man and humanity, the living and the life, solitudes, cities, religions, diamonds and pearls, dung-hills and charnelhouses, the ebb and flow of beings, the steps of comers and goers, all, all are on Shakespeare and in Shakespeare.
-
Let us have compassion for those under chastisement. Alas, who are we ourselves? Who am I and who are you? Whence do we come and is it quite certain that we did nothing before we were born? This earth is not without some resemblance to a gaol. Who knows but that man is a victim of divine justice? Look closely at life. It is so constituted that one senses punishment everywhere.
-
I believe in religion against the religious; in the pitifulness of orisons, and in the sublimity of prayer.
-
The most beautiful of altars, he said, is the soul of an unhappy creature consoled and thankfing God.
-
Reason is intelligence taking exercise. Imagination is intelligence with an erection.
-
At the shrine of friendship never say die, let the wine of friendship never run dry.
-
Ma vie est une énigme dont ton nom est le mot. (My life is an enigma, of which your name is the word.)
-
Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars. Cimourdain was full of virtues and truth, but they shine out of a dark background.
-
When you get an idea into your head you find it in everything.
-
One only needs to see a smile in a white crape bonnet in order to enter the palace of dreams.
-
We are not loved by our friends for what we are; rather, we are loved in spite of what we are.
-
What's our baggage? Only vows, Happiness, and all our care, And the flower that sweetly shows Nestling lightly in your hair.
-
They adored each other; but still the permanent and the immutable subsist. We may love and laugh, pout, clasp hands, smile, and exchange endearments, but that does not affect eternity. Two lovers hide in the dusk of evening, amid flowers and the twittering of birds, and enchant each other with their hearts shinning in their eyes; but the stars in their course still circle through infinite space.
-
So long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Miserables cannot fail to be of use.
-
...mothers are often fondest of the child which has caused them the greatest pain.
-
Equality does not mean that all plants must grow to the same height - a society of tall grass and dwarf trees, a jostle of conflicting jealousies. It means, in civic terms, an equal outlet for all talents; in political terms, that all votes will carry the same weight; and in religious terms that all beliefs will enjoy equal rights.
-
A few feet under the ground reigns so profound a silence, and yet so much tumult on the surface!
-
It was SHE. Whoever has loved knows all the radiant meaning contained in the three letters of this word ‘she.