Victor Hugo Quotes

To love is the half of to believe.

Where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incident, chaos will soon reign.

True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do.

It is ourselves we have to fear. Prejudice is the real robber, and vice the real murderer.

From a political point of view, there is but one principle, the sovereignty of man over himself. This sovereignty of myself over myself is called Liberty

A day will come when markets, open to trade, and minds, open to ideas, will become the sole battlefield.

A library implies an act of faith which generations, still in darkness hid, sign in their night in witness of the dawn.

Let us say it now: to be blind and to be loved, is indeed, upon this earth where nothing is complete, one of the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness.

Caution is the eldest child of wisdom.

The wise man does not grow old, but ripens.

On this point, the priest and the philosopher agree: We must die.

Slaves would be tyrants were the chance theirs.

A joyous little creature, so beautiful, It was as if a gate of Heaven opened as she came in.

Sleep comes more easily than it returns.

We may remark in passing that to be blind and beloved may, in this world where nothing is perfect, be among the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness. The supreme happiness in life is the assurance of being loved; of being loved for oneself, even in spite of oneself; and this assurance the blind man possesses. In his affliction, to be served is to be caressed. Does he lack anything? no. Possessing love he is not deprived of light. A love, moreover, that is wholly pure. There can be no blindness where there is this certainty.

The man who fights against his own country is never a hero.

The saints were his friends, and blessed him; the monsters were his friends, and guarded him.

Nothing can be more depressing than to expose, naked to the light of thought, the hideous growth of argot. Indeed it is like a sort of repellent animal intended to dwell in darkness which has been dragged out of its cloaca. One seems to see a horned and living creature viciously struggling to be restored to the place where it belongs. One word is like a claw, another like a sightless and bleeding eye; and there are phrases which clutch like the pincers of a crab. And all of it is alive with the hideous vitality of things that have organized themselves amid disorganization.

Not seeing people allows you to think of them as perfect in all kinds of ways.

For the rest, he was the same to all men, the fashionable world and the ordinary people. He judged nothing in haste, or without taking account of the cirumstances. He said, 'Let me see how the fault arose.

You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving. The great acts of love are done by those who are habitually performing small acts of kindness. We pardon to the extent that we love. Love is knowing that even when you are alone, you will never be lonely again. & great happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved. Loved for ourselves. & even loved in spite of ourselves.

All animals are to be found in men and each of theme exists in some man, sometimes several at the time.

Men hate those to whom they have to lie.

Does there exist an Infinity outside ourselves? Is that infinity One, immanent and permanent, necessarily having substance, since He is infinite and if He lacked matter He would be limited, necessarily possessing intelligence since He is infinite and, lacking intelligence, He would be in that sense finite. Does this Infinity inspire in us the idea of essense, while to ourselves we can only attribute the idea of existence? In order words, is He not the whole of which we are but the part?

There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.

The rich's paradise was created by the poor's hell.

A faith is a necessity to a man. Woe to him who believes in nothing.

The poor man shuddered, overflowed with an angelic joy; he declared in his transport that this would last through life; he said to himself that he really had not suffered enough to deserve such radiant happiness, and he thanked God, in the depths of his soul, for having permitted that he, a miserable man, should be so loved by this innocent being.

To crush out fanaticism and revere the infinite, such is the law. Let us not confine ourselves to falling prostrate beneath the tree of creation and contemplating its vast ramifications full of stars. We have a duty to perform, to cultivate the human soul, to defend mystery against miracle, to adore the incomprehensible and to reject the absurd; to admit nothing that is inexplicable excepting what is necessary, to purify faith and obliterate superstition from the face of religion, to remove the vermin from the garden of God.

The future has several names. For the weak, it is impossible; for the fainthearted, it is unknown; but for the valiant, it is ideal.

To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.

Ah! There you are! he exclaimed, looking at Jean Valjean. I'm so glad to see you. Well, but how is this? I gave you the candlesticks too, which are of silver like the rest, and for which you can certainly get two hundred francs. Why did you not carry them away with your forks and spoons?

He did not study God; he was dazzled by him.

While contemplating the bride, and eyeing the cake of soap, he muttered between his teeth: 'Tuesday. It was not Tuesday. Was it Tuesday? Perhaps it was Tuesday. Yes, it was Tuesday.' No one has ever discovered to what this monologue referred. Yes, perchance, this monologue had some connection with the last occasion on which he had dined, three days before, for it was now Friday.

There are many tongues to talk, and but few heads to think.

What happened between those two beings? Nothing. They were adoring one another.

A shadow is hard to seize by the throat and dash to the ground.

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?

Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.

Cheerfulness is like money well expended in charity; the more we dispense of it, the greater our possession.

It is a terrible thing to be happy! How pleased we are with it! How all-sufficient we think it! How, being in possession of the false aim of life, happiness, we forget the true aim, duty!

Wherever the Turkish hoof trods, no grass grows.

When a man is out of sight, it is not too long before he is out of mind.

Love is the only future God offers.

To rise from error to truth is rare and beautiful.

Every bird which flies has the thread of the infinite in its claw. Germination includes the hatching of a meteor and the tap of a swallow's bill breaking the egg, and it leads forward the birth of an earth-worm and the advent of Socrates.

These are true felicities. No joy beyond these joys. Love is the only ecstasy, everything else weeps

To love another person is to see the face of God.