Victor Hugo Quotes

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Nothing is so logical and nothing appears so absurd as the ocean.
Victor Hugo Quotes: Nothing is so logical and
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.
Victor Hugo Quotes: Let us have compassion for
The true artist can only labor con amore.
Victor Hugo Quotes: The true artist can only
What about me?' said Grantaire. 'I'm here.'
'You?'
'Yes, me.'
'You? Rally Republicans! You? In defence of principles, fire up hearts that have grown cold!'
'Why not?'
'Are you capable of being good for something?'
'I have the vague ambition to be,' said Grantaire.
'You don't believe in anything.'
'I believe in you.'
'Grantaire, will you do me a favour?'
'Anything. Polish your boots.'
'Well, don't meddle in our affairs. Go and sleep off the effects of your absinthe.'
'You're heartless, Enjolras.'
'As if you'd be the man to send to the Maine gate! As if you were capable of it!'
'I'm capable of going down Rue des Grès, crossing Place St-Michel, heading off along Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, taking Rue de Vaugirard, passing the Carmelite convent, turning into Rue d'Assas, proceeding to Rue du Cherche-Midi, leaving the Military Court behind me, wending my way along Rue des Vieilles-Tuileries, striding across the boulevard, following Chaussée du Maine, walking through the toll-gate and going into Richefeu's. I'm capable of that. My shoes are capable of that.'
'Do you know them at all, those comrades who meet at Richefeu's?'
'Not very well. But we're on friendly terms.'
'What will you say to them?'
'I'll talk to them about Robespierre, of course! And about Danton. About principles.'
'You?'
'Yes, me. But I'm not being given the credit I deserve. When I put my mind to it, I'm terrific. I've
Victor Hugo Quotes: What about me?' said Grantaire.
No army can stop an idea whose time has come
Victor Hugo Quotes: No army can stop an
In the morning, when he entered my room, I grumbled, but he was like the sunlight to me, all the same. One cannot defend oneself against those brats. They take hold of you, they hold you fast, they never let you go again. The truth is, that there never was a cupid like that child.
Victor Hugo Quotes: In the morning, when he
The ox suffers, the cart complains.
Victor Hugo Quotes: The ox suffers, the cart
Ignominy thirsts for respect.
Victor Hugo Quotes: Ignominy thirsts for respect.
What would be ugly in a garden constitutes beauty in a mountain.
Victor Hugo Quotes: What would be ugly in
The word is the Verb, and the Verb is God.
Victor Hugo Quotes: The word is the Verb,
The infinite space that each man carries within himself, wherein despairingly he contrasts the movement of his spirit with the acts of his life, is and overpowering thing.
Victor Hugo Quotes: The infinite space that each
The driver, a black silhouette upon his box, whipped up his bony horses. Icy silence in the coach. Marius, motionless, his body braced in the corner of the carriage, his head dropping down upon his breast, his arms hanging, his legs rigid, appeared to await nothing now but a coffin; Jean Valjean seemed made of shadow, and Javert of stone.
Victor Hugo Quotes: The driver, a black silhouette
Son, brother, father, lover, friend. There is room in the heart for all the affections, as there is room in heaven for all the stars.
Victor Hugo Quotes: Son, brother, father, lover, friend.
God made only water, but man made wine.
Victor Hugo Quotes: God made only water, but
Common sense is in spite of, not the result of, education.
Victor Hugo Quotes: Common sense is in spite
Let us fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices are the real murderers. The great dangers lie within ourselves.
Victor Hugo Quotes: Let us fear ourselves. Prejudices
The goodness of the mother is written on the gaiety of the child.
Victor Hugo Quotes: The goodness of the mother
It may be remarked in passing that success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit. To the crowd, success wears almost the features of true mastery, and the greatest dupe of this counterfeit talent is History.
Victor Hugo Quotes: It may be remarked in
Religions do a useful thing: they narrow God to the limits of man. Philosophy replies by doing a necessary thing: it elevates man to the plane of God.
Victor Hugo Quotes: Religions do a useful thing:
Communism and agrarian law think that they solve the second problem. They are mistaken. Their division kills production. Equal partition abolishes emulation; and consequently labor. It is a partition made by the butcher, which kills that which it divides. It is therefore impossible to pause over these pretended solutions. Slaying wealth is not the same thing as dividing it. The
Victor Hugo Quotes: Communism and agrarian law think
Nothing like a soulful glance under the noses of the saints!
Victor Hugo Quotes: Nothing like a soulful glance
Slowly he took out the clothes in which, ten years beforem Cosette had left Montfermeil; first the little dress, then the black scarf, then the great heavy child's shoes Cosette could still almost have worn, so small was her foot, then the vest of very thich fustian, then the knitted petticoat, the the apron with pockets, then the wool stockings ... Then his venerable white head fell on the bed, this old stoical heart broke, his face was swallowed up, so to speak, in Cosette's clothes, and anybody who had passed along the staircase at that moment would have heard irrepressible sobbing.
Victor Hugo Quotes: Slowly he took out the
The arms of mothers are made of tenderness; in them children sleep profoundly.
Victor Hugo Quotes: The arms of mothers are
Teach those who are ignorant as many things as possible; society is culpable, in that it does not afford instruction gratis; it is responsible for the night which it produces. This soul is full of shadow; sin is therein committed. The guilty one is not the person who has committed the sin, but the person who has created the shadow.
Victor Hugo Quotes: Teach those who are ignorant
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.
Victor Hugo Quotes: To be a saint is
A thousand men enslaved fear one beast free.
Victor Hugo Quotes: A thousand men enslaved fear
CHAPTER VIII - PHILOSOPHY AFTER DRINKING
Victor Hugo Quotes: CHAPTER VIII - PHILOSOPHY AFTER
Press on! A better fate awaits thee.
Victor Hugo Quotes: Press on! A better fate
Animals run no risk of going to hell. They are already there.
Victor Hugo Quotes: Animals run no risk of
When I speak to you about myself, I am speaking to you about yourself. How is it you don't see that?
Victor Hugo Quotes: When I speak to you
A writer is a word trapped in a person.
Victor Hugo Quotes: A writer is a word
Utopias travel about underground, in the pipes. There they branch out in every direction. They sometimes meet, and fraternize there. Jean-Jacques lends his pick to Diogenes, who lends him his lantern. Sometimes they enter into combat there. Calvin seizes Socinius by the hair. But nothing arrests nor interrupts the tension of all these energies toward the goal, and the vast, simultaneous activity, which goes and comes, mounts, descends, and mounts again in these obscurities, and which immense unknown swarming slowly transforms the top and the bottom and the inside and the outside. Society hardly even suspects this digging which leaves its surface intact and changes its bowels. There are as many different subterranean stages as there are varying works, as there are extractions. What emerges from these deep excavations? The future.
Victor Hugo Quotes: Utopias travel about underground, in
To-morrow fulfils its work irresistibly, and it is already fulfilling it to-day. It
Victor Hugo Quotes: To-morrow fulfils its work irresistibly,
To see nothing of a person makes it possible to credit him with all the perfection.
Victor Hugo Quotes: To see nothing of a
Women are more credulous than men.
Victor Hugo Quotes: Women are more credulous than
Nobody knows like a woman how to say things that are both sweet and profound. Sweetness and depth, this is all of woman; this is Heaven.
Victor Hugo Quotes: Nobody knows like a woman
The cold and bitter scorn of the passers-by penetrated her very flesh and soul like a north wind.
Victor Hugo Quotes: The cold and bitter scorn
He condemned nothing in haste and without taking circumstances into account. He said, Examine the road over which the fault has passed.
Victor Hugo Quotes: He condemned nothing in haste
and the goodman beheld this apparition, which had bare feet and a tattered petticoat, running about among the flower-beds distributing life around her. The sound of the watering-pot on the leaves filled Father Mabeuf's soul with ecstasy. It seemed to him that the rhododendron was happy now.
Victor Hugo Quotes: and the goodman beheld this
The future belongs to hearts even more than it does to minds. Love, that is the only thing that can occupy and fill eternity. In the infinite, the inexhaustible is requisite.
Love participates of the soul itself. It is of the same nature. Like it, it is the divine spark; like it, it is incorruptible, indivisible, imperishable. It is a point of fire that exists within us, which is immortal and infinite, which nothing can confine, and which nothing can extinguish. We feel it burning even to the very marrow of our bones, and we see it beaming in the very depths of heaven.
Victor Hugo Quotes: The future belongs to hearts
The realities of life do not allow themselves to be forgotten.
Victor Hugo Quotes: The realities of life do
Table talk and Lovers' talk equally elude the grasp; Lovers' Talk is clouds, Table Talk is smoke.
Les Miserables
Victor Hugo Quotes: Table talk and Lovers' talk
The convict was transfigured into Christ.
Victor Hugo Quotes: The convict was transfigured into
When people look back at their childhood or youth, their wistfulness comes from the memory, not of what their lives had been in those years, but of what life had then promised to be. The expectation of some indefinable splendor, of the unusual, the exciting, the great is an attribute of youth and the process of aging is the process of that expectations' gradual extinction. One does not have to let it happen. But that fire dies for lack of fuel, under the gray weight of disappointments.
Victor Hugo Quotes: When people look back at
From suffering to suffering, he had gradually arrived at the conviction that life is a war; and that in this war he was the conquered.
Victor Hugo Quotes: From suffering to suffering, he
Life is a theatre set in which there are but few practicable entrances.
Victor Hugo Quotes: Life is a theatre set
There comes an hour when protest no longer suffices; after philosophy there must be action; the strong hand finishes what the idea has sketched.
Victor Hugo Quotes: There comes an hour when
You asked me why I saved you. You have forgotten a villain who tried to carry you off one night,- a villain to whom the very next day you brought relief upon their infamous pillory. A drop of water and a little pity are more than my whole life can ever repay. You have forgotten that villain; but he remembers."

~Quasimodo to Esmeralda~
Victor Hugo Quotes: You asked me why I
A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labor and there is invisible labor.
Victor Hugo Quotes: A man is not idle
I am not enthusiastic over your Jesus, who preaches renunciation and sacrifice to the last extremity. 'Tis the counsel of an avaricious man to beggars. Renunciation; why? Sacrifice; to what end? I do not see one wolf immolating himself for the happiness of another wolf. Let us stick to nature, then.
Victor Hugo Quotes: I am not enthusiastic over
There is, as we know, a philosophy which denies the infinite. There is also a philosophy, pathologically classified, which denies the sun; this philosophy is called blindness.
Victor Hugo Quotes: There is, as we know,
The eye of the spirit can nowhere find more dazzling brilliance and more shadow than in man; it can fix itself on no other thing which is more formidable, more complicated, more mysterious, and more infinite. There is a spectacle more grand than the sea; it is heaven: there is a spectacle more grand than heaven; it is the inmost recesses of the soul.

To make the poem of the human conscience, were it only with reference to a single man, were it only in connection with the basest of men, would be to blend all epics into one superior and definitive epic. Conscience is the chaos of chimeras, of lusts, and of temptations; the furnace of dreams; the lair of ideas of which we are ashamed; it is the pandemonium of sophisms; it is the battlefield of the passions. Penetrate, at certain hours, past the livid face of a human being who is engaged in reflection, and look behind, gaze into that soul, gaze into that obscurity. There, beneath that external silence, battles of giants, like those recorded in Homer, are in progress; skirmishes of dragons and hydras and swarms of phantoms, as in Milton; visionary circles, as in Dante. What a solemn thing is this infinity which every man bears within him, and which he measures with despair against the caprices of his brain and the actions of his life!
Victor Hugo Quotes: The eye of the spirit
In all Thénardier's outpourings, the words and gestures, the fury blazing in his eyes, this explosion of an evil nature brazenly exposed, the mixture of bravado and abjectness, arrogance, pettiness, rage, absurdity; the hodgepodge of genuine distress, and lying sentiment, the shamelessness of a vicious man rejoicing in viciousness, the bare crudity of an ugly soul -- in this eruption of all suffering and hatred there was something which was hideous as evil itself and still as poignant as truth.
Victor Hugo Quotes: In all Thénardier's outpourings, the
The ode lives upon the ideal, the epic upon the grandiose, the drama upon the real.
Victor Hugo Quotes: The ode lives upon the
To speak out aloud when alone is as it were to have a dialogue with the divinity which is within.
Victor Hugo Quotes: To speak out aloud when
At another time, on receiving a notification of the decease of a gentleman of the country-side, wherein not only the dignities of the dead man, but also the feudal and noble qualifications of all his relatives, spread over an entire page: "What a stout back Death has!" he exclaimed. "What a strange burden of titles is cheerfully imposed on him, and how much wit must men have, in order thus to press the tomb into the service of vanity!
Victor Hugo Quotes: At another time, on receiving
Those who do not weep, do not see.
Victor Hugo Quotes: Those who do not weep,
The smaller it is the heart, more hatred houses.
Victor Hugo Quotes: The smaller it is the
The just man frowns, but never sneers. We understand anger, not malice.
Victor Hugo Quotes: The just man frowns, but
He would give all of his clothes to his servant, admonishing him NOT to return them until he had completed his day's work.
Victor Hugo Quotes: He would give all of
All this ferment was public, we might almost say tranquil.
The imminent insurrection gathered its storm calmly in the face of the government. No singularity was lacking in this crisis, still subterranean, but already perceptible. The middle class talked quietly with workingmen about the preparations. They would say, "How is the uprising coming along?" in the same tone in which they would have said, " How's your wife?
Victor Hugo Quotes: All this ferment was public,
In every village there is a candle, the teacher;
and an extinguisher, the clergy.
Victor Hugo Quotes: In every village there is
In the domain of art there is no light without heat.
Victor Hugo Quotes: In the domain of art
The soul has illusions as the bird has wings: it is supported by them.
Victor Hugo Quotes: The soul has illusions as
Nature is pitiless; she never withdraws her flowers, her music, her fragrance, and her sunlight from before human cruelty or suffering.
Victor Hugo Quotes: Nature is pitiless; she never
I am he who cometh out of the depths. My lords, you are great and rich. There lies your danger. You profit by the night; but beware! The dawn is all-powerful. You cannot prevail over it. It is coming. Nay! it is come. Within it is the day-spring of irresistible light. And who shall hinder that sling from hurling the sun into the sky. The sun I speak of is Right. You are Privilege. Tremble!
Victor Hugo Quotes: I am he who cometh
In every place where man is ignorant and despairing, in every place where woman is sold for bread, wherever the child suffers for lack
Victor Hugo Quotes: In every place where man
Youth, even in its sorrows, always possesses its own peculiar radiance.
Victor Hugo Quotes: Youth, even in its sorrows,
What a grand thing, to be loved! What a grander thing still, to love!
Victor Hugo Quotes: What a grand thing, to
For prying into any human affairs, none are equal to those whom it does not concern.
Victor Hugo Quotes: For prying into any human
A saint addicted to abnegation is a dangerous neighbor; he is very likely to infect you with an incurable poverty, a stiffening of the articulations necessary to advancement, and, in fact, more renunciation than you would like; and men flee from this contagious virtue. Hence the isolation of Monseigneur Bienvenu. We live in a sad society. Succeed
that is the advice which falls drop by drop from the overhanging corruption.
Victor Hugo Quotes: A saint addicted to abnegation
Thus he shut himself up, he lived there, he was absolutely satisfied with it, leaving on one side the prodigious questions which attract and terrify, the fathomless perspectives of abstraction, the precipices of metaphysics - all those profundities which converge, for the apostle in God, for the atheist in nothingness; destiny, good and evil, the way of being against being, the conscience of man, the thoughtful somnambulism of the animal, the transformation in death, the recapitulation of existences which the tomb contains, the incomprehensible grafting of successive loves on the persistent I, the essence, the substance, the Nile, and the Ens, the soul, nature, liberty, necessity; perpendicular problems, sinister obscurities, where lean the gigantic archangels of the human mind; formidable
Victor Hugo Quotes: Thus he shut himself up,
All has happened to her that will happen to her. She has felt everything, borne everything, experienced everything, suffered everything, lost everything, mourned everything. She is resigned, with that resignation which resembles indifference, as death resembles sleep. She no longer avoids anything. Let all the clouds fall upon her, and all the ocean sweep over her! What matters it to her? She is a sponge that is soaked.
Victor Hugo Quotes: All has happened to her
He did not study God; he was dazzled by him.
Victor Hugo Quotes: He did not study God;
This is what floats up confusedly, pell-mell, for the year 1817, and is now forgotten. History neglects nearly all these particulars, and cannot do otherwise; the infinity would overwhelm it. Nevertheless, these details, which are wrongly called trivial, - there are no trivial facts in humanity, nor little leaves in vegetation, - are useful. It is of the physiognomy of the years that the physiognomy of the centuries is composed. In this year of 1817 four young Parisians arranged "a fine farce.
Victor Hugo Quotes: This is what floats up
The ideal and the beautiful are identical; the ideal corresponds to the idea, and beauty to form; hence idea and substance are cognate.
Victor Hugo Quotes: The ideal and the beautiful
Age, eighteen or twenty, in accordance with a custom which is rather widely prevalent in parliamentary families. In spite of this marriage, however, it was said that Charles Myriel created a great deal of talk. He was well formed, though rather short in stature, elegant, graceful, intelligent; the whole of the first portion of his life had been devoted to the world and to gallantry. The Revolution came; events succeeded each other with precipitation; the parliamentary families, decimated, pursued, hunted down, were dispersed. M. Charles Myriel emigrated to Italy at the very beginning of the Revolution. There his wife died of
Victor Hugo Quotes: Age, eighteen or twenty, in
A tempest ceases, a cyclone passes over, a wind dies down, a broken mast can be replaced, a leak can be stopped, a fire extinguished, but what will become of this enormous brute of bronze?
Victor Hugo Quotes: A tempest ceases, a cyclone
Let us live, by all means. But let us try to ensure that death is a progress. Let us aspire to worlds that are less dark. Let us follow the conscience that leads us there.
Victor Hugo Quotes: Let us live, by all
All the birds that fly hold the thread of infinity in their claws. Germination
Victor Hugo Quotes: All the birds that fly
With grand and lofty natures, the revolts of the flesh and the senses when subjected to physical suffering cause the soul to spring forth, and make it appear on the brow, just as rebellions among the soldiery force the captain to show himself.
Victor Hugo Quotes: With grand and lofty natures,
A benevolent malefactor, merciful, gentle, helpful, clement, a convict, returning good for evil, giving back pardon for hatred, preferring pity to vengeance, preferring to ruin himself rather than to ruin his enemy, saving him who had smitten him, kneeling on the heights of virtue, more nearly akin to an angel than to a man. Javert was constrained to admit to himself that this monster existed.
Things could not go on in this manner.
Victor Hugo Quotes: A benevolent malefactor, merciful, gentle,
This book is a drama, whose leading personage is the Infinite.
Victor Hugo Quotes: This book is a drama,
No corruption is possible with the diamond.
Victor Hugo Quotes: No corruption is possible with
The spirit of God, like the sun, always gives all its light at once. The spirit of man resembles the pale moon, which has its phases, its absences and its returns, its lucidity and its spots, its fullness and its disappearance, which borrows all its light from the rays of the sun, and which still dares to intercept them on occasion.
Victor Hugo Quotes: The spirit of God, like
Thenardier had just passed his fiftieth birthday; Madame Thenardier was approaching her forties, which is equivalent to fifty in a woman; so that there existed a balance of age between husband and wife.
Victor Hugo Quotes: Thenardier had just passed his
Fex urbis, lex orbis" (The dregs of the city, the law of the earth), from Les Miserables, attributed to St. Jerome
Victor Hugo Quotes: Fex urbis, lex orbis
in the bourgeoisie, honored situations decay through too easy relations; one must beware whom one admits;
Victor Hugo Quotes: in the bourgeoisie, honored situations
On emerging from that black and deformed thing which is called the galleys, the Bishop had hurt his soul, as too vivid a light would have hurt his eyes on emerging from the dark. The future life, the possible life which offered itself to him henceforth, all pure and radiant, filled him with tremors and anxiety. He no longer knew where he really was. Like
Victor Hugo Quotes: On emerging from that black
Misfortunes shared creates happiness.
Victor Hugo Quotes: Misfortunes shared creates happiness.
Who can calculate the trajectory of a molecule? How do we know the creation of worlds is not determined by the falling of grains of sand? Who, after all, knows the reciprocal ebb and flow of the infinitely big and the infinitely small, the reverberation of causes in the chasms of a being, the avalanches of creation? A
Victor Hugo Quotes: Who can calculate the trajectory
A poet is a world enclosed in a man.
Victor Hugo Quotes: A poet is a world
Wisdom is a sacred communion.
Victor Hugo Quotes: Wisdom is a sacred communion.
Nature at times adds her own commentary to our actions with a kind of somber and considered eloquence, as though she were bidding us reflect.
Victor Hugo Quotes: Nature at times adds her
A library implies an act of faith.
Victor Hugo Quotes: A library implies an act
If you are stone, be magnetic; if a plant, be sensitive; but if you are human be love.
Victor Hugo Quotes: If you are stone, be
Hope in a child who has never known anything but despair is a sweet and touching thing.
Victor Hugo Quotes: Hope in a child who
As for Toussaint, she venerated Jean Valjean and liked everything he did. One
Victor Hugo Quotes: As for Toussaint, she venerated
This is not my house; it is the house of Jesus Christ. This door does not demand of him who enters whether he has a name, but whether he has a grief. You suffer, you are hungry and thirsty; you are welcome. And do not thank me; do not say that I receive you in my house. No one is at home here, except the man who needs a refuge. I say to you, who are passing by, that you are much more at home here than I am myself.
Victor Hugo Quotes: This is not my house;
Why comes there an hour when we leave this azure, and why does life continue afterwards?
Victor Hugo Quotes: Why comes there an hour
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