Victor Hugo Quotes
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Science is continually correcting what it has said. Fertile corrections... science is a ladder... poetry is a winged flight... An artistic masterpiece exists for all time... Dante does not efface Homer.
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There is but one way of refusing To-morrow, that is to die.
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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.
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...Human thought has no limit. At its risk and peril, it analyzes and dissects its own fascination. We could almost say that, by a sort of splendid reaction, it fascinates nature; the mysterious world surrounding us returns what it receives; it is likely that contemplators are contemplated.
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A wretched woman is more unfortunate than a wretched man.
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The hatred of luxury is not an intelligent hatred. It implies a hatred of arts.
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To be wicked does not insure prosperity - for the inn did not succeed well.
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It is God who makes woman beautiful, it is the devil who makes her pretty.
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I have been loving you a little more every minute since this morning.
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...mothers are often fondest of the child which has caused them the greatest pain.
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Promise to give me a kiss on my brow when I am dead. – I shall feel it." She dropped her head again on Marius' knees, and her eyelids closed. He thought the poor soul had departed. Eponine remained motionless. All at once, at the very moment when Marius fancied her asleep forever, she slowly opened her eyes in which appeared the sombre profundity of death, and said to him in a tone whose sweetness seemed already to proceed from another world: – "And by the way, Monsieur Marius, I believe that I was a little bit in love with you.
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In my old age there is a coming into flower. My body wanes; my mind waxes.
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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.
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Was it possible that Napoleon should win the battle of Waterloo? We answer, No! Why? Because of Wellington? Because of Blucher? No! Because of God! For Bonaparte to conquer at Waterloo was not the law of the nineteenth century. It was time that this vast man should fall. He had been impeached before the Infinite! He had vexed God! Waterloo was not a battle. It was the change of front of the Universe!
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Popularity? It's glory's small change.
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It is the essence of truth that it is never excessive. Why should it exaggerate? There is that which should be destroyed and that which should be simply illuminated and studied. How great is the force of benevolent and searching examination! We must not resort to the flame where only light is required.
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This first glance of a soul which does not yet know itself is like dawn in the heavens; it is the awakening of something radiant and unknown.
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The real, native South Seas food is lousy. You can't eat it.
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God has set his intentions in the flowers, in the dawn, in the spring, it is his will that we should love.
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Dieu s'est fait homme; soit. Le diable s'est fait femme!
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To be a saint is the exception; to be a just person is the rule. Err, stumble, commit sin, but be one of the just.
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[T]he small is great, the great is small; all is in equilibrium in necessity.
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God whose gifts in gracious flood Unto all who seek are sent, Only asks you to be good And is content.
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So a voice in the mountain is enough to let loose an avalanche. A word too much may be followed by a caving in. If the word had not been spoken, it would not have happened.