A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor.
Victor HugoHe caught her, she fell, he caught her in his arms, he held her tightly unconscious of what he was doing. He held her up, though tottering himself. He felt as if his head were filled with smoke; flashes of light slipped through his eyelids; his thoughts vanished; it seemed to him that he was performing a religious act, and that he was committing a profanation. Moreover, he did not feel one passionate desire for this ravishing woman, whose form he felt against his heart. He was lost in love.
Victor HugoA day will come when there will be no battlefields, but markets opening to commerce and minds opening to ideas.
Victor HugoThe truth of an upright man must be accepted on his own terms. Moreover, since natures vary, we must agree that all the beauties of human excellence may be fostered by faiths that we do not share.
Victor HugoThe word Gothic, in the sense in which it is generally employed, is wholly unsuitable, but wholly consecrated. Hence we accept it and we adopt it, like all the rest of the world, to characterize the architecture of the second half of the Middle Ages, where the ogive is the principle which succeeds the architecture of the first period, of which the semi-circle is the father.
Victor HugoIt is sad to tell, but after having tried society, which had caused his misfortune, he tried Providence which created society, and condemned it also.
Victor HugoOne of the hardest labours of the just man is to expunge from his soul a malevolence which it is difficult to efface.
Victor HugoHe had, they said, tasted in succession all the apples of the tree of knowledge, and, whether from hunger or disgust, had ended by tasting the forbidden fruit.
Victor HugoLove would never be a promise of a rose garden unless it is showered with light of faith, water of sincerity and air of passion. Sometimes we make love with our eyes. Sometimes we make love with our hands. Sometimes we make love with our bodies. Always we make love with our hearts. If I could reach up and hold a star for every time you've made me smile, the entire evening sky would be in the palm of my hand. To love another person is to see the face of God.
Victor HugoNever had the sky been more studded with stars and more charming, the trees more trembling, the odor of the grass more penetrating; never had the birds fallen asleep among the leaves with a sweeter noise; never had all the harmonies of universal serenity responded more thoroughly to the inward music of love; never had Marius been more captivated, more happy, more ecstatic.
Victor HugoThe omnipotence of evil has never resulted in anything but fruitless efforts. Our thoughts always escape from whoever tries to smother them.
Victor Hugo...Though we chisel away as best we can at the mysterious block from which our life is made, the black vein of destiny continually reappears.
Victor HugoWe say that slavery has vanished from European civilization, but this is not true. Slavery still exists, but now it applies only to women and its name is prostitution.
Victor HugoHe was at his own request and through his own complicity driven out of all his happinesses one after the other; and he had this sorrow, that after having lost Cosette wholly in one day, he was afterwards obliged to lose her again in detail.
Victor HugoGod has set his intentions in the flowers, in the dawn, in the spring, it is his will that we should love.
Victor HugoA language does not become fixed. The human intellect is always on the march, or, if you prefer, in movement, and languages with it.
Victor HugoCan human nature ever be wholly and radically transformed? Can the man whom God made good be made wicked by man? Can the soul be reshaped in its entirety by destiny and made evil because destiny is evil? Can the heart become misshapen and afflicted with ugly, incurable deformities under disproportionate misfortune, like a spinal column bent beneath a too low roof?
Victor HugoIt is an unpleasant thing to go to bed without supper, it is a still less pleasant thing not to sup and not to know where one is to sleep.
Victor HugoBut alas, if I have not maintained my victory, it is God's fault for not making man and the devil of equal strength.
Victor HugoThe miserable's name is Man; he is agonizing in all climes, and he is groaning in all languages.
Victor HugoI don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses.
Victor HugoAnger may be foolish and absurd, and one may be wrongly irritated, but a man never feels outraged unless in some respect he is fundamentally right.
Victor Hugo