Victor Hugo Quotes

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308 Quotes to Uplift Your Spirit and Guide You with Timeless Wisdom

“Let us study things that are no more. It is necessary to understand them, if only to avoid them.”

“Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.”

“It is not easy to keep silent when silence is a lie.”

“The soul helps the body, and at certain moments raises it. It is the only bird that sustains its cage.”

“Not seeing people permits us to imagine them with every perfection.”

“Marius and Cosette were in the dark in regard to each other. They did not speak, they did not bow, they were not acquainted; they saw each other; and, like the stars in the sky separated by millions of leagues, they lived by gazing upon each other.”

“If you wish to understand what Revolution is, call it Progress; and if you wish to understand what Progress is, call it Tomorrow.”

“I wanted to see you again, touch you, know who you were, see if I would find you identical with the ideal image of you which had remained with me and perhaps shatter my dream with the aid of reality.

-Claude Frollo”

“There are no weeds, and no worthless men. There are only bad farmers.”

“If people did not love one another, I really don't see what use there would be in having any spring.”

“If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness. (Monseigneur Bienvenu in _Les Miserables_)”

“Diamonds are to be found only in the darkness of the earth, and truth in the darkness of the mind.”

“… But listen, there will be more joy in heaven over the tears of a repentant sinner than over the white robes of a hundred just men.”

“Be like the bird that, passing on her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings.”

“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 first symptom of true love in a man is timidity, in a young woman, boldness. This is surprising, and yet nothing is more simple. It is the two sexes tending to approach each other and assuming each the other's qualities.”

“For there are many great deeds done in the small struggles of life.”

“Love is the only future God offers.”

“The beautiful is as useful as the useful." He added after a moment’s silence, "Perhaps more so.”

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

“Every bird that flies has the thread of the infinite in its claw.”

“Faith is necessary to men; woe to him who believes in nothing!”

“Fashions have done more harm than revolutions.”

“And do you know Monsieur Marius? I believe I was a little in love with you.”

“Spira, spera.

(breathe, hope)”

“He loved books; books are cold but safe friends.”

“Nothing is more imminent than the impossible… what we must always foresee is the unforeseen.”

“God knows better than we do what we need.”

“Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet.”

“I'd like a drink. I desire to forget life. Life is a hideous invention by somebody I don't know. It doesn't last, and it's good for nothing. You break your neck simply living.”

“… mothers are often fondest of the child which has caused them the greatest pain.”

“Life is a theatre set in which there are but few practicable entrances.”

“Curiosity is gluttony. To see is to devour.”

“A one-eyed man is much more incomplete than a blind man, for he knows what it is that's lacking.”

“Mothers arms are made of tenderness, And sweet sleep blesses the child who lies therein.”

“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.”

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

“It is from books that wise people derive consolation in the troubles of life.”

“As with stomachs, we should pity minds that do not eat.”

“A man without a woman is like a pistol without a trigger; it is the woman who makes the man go off.”

“Success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit…. They confound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud.”

“God will reward you,' he said. 'You must be an angel since you care for flowers.”

“Sleep comes more easily than it returns.”

“Morality is truth in full bloom.”

“She loved with so much passion as she loved with ignorance. She did not know whether it were good or evil, beneficent or dangerous, necessary or accidental, eternal or transitory, permitted or prohibited: she loved.”

“England has two books, the Bible and Shakespeare. England made Shakespeare, but the Bible made England.”

“One can no more keep the mind from returning to an idea than the sea from returning to a shore. For a sailor, this is called the tide; in the case of the guilty it is called remorse. God stirs up the soul as well as the ocean.”

“It was SHE. Whoever has loved knows all the radiant meaning contained in the three letters of this word ‘she.”

“The quantity of civilization is measured by the quality of imagination.”