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

Explore Victor Hugo's profound insights and timeless wisdom. Be inspired by powerful quotes on belief, love, and more. Let the words of this literary icon uplift your spirit and guide you.

Victor-Marie Hugo was a highly acclaimed French Romantic writer and politician, hailed as one of the greatest French writers of all time. With a literary career spanning over six decades, he excelled in various genres and forms of writing. His notable works include the novels "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame" and "Les Misérables," as well as poetry collections like "Les Contemplations" and "La Légende des siècles." Furthermore, his influence extended beyond literature, inspiring musical adaptations such as the opera Rigoletto and the musicals Les Misérables and Notre-Dame de Paris. Additionally, Hugo championed social causes like the elimination of capital punishment and showcased his artistic talents through over 4,000 drawings.

Initially a staunch royalist, Hugo's perspectives underwent a significant transformation as he grew older. He developed an unwavering support for republicanism and actively engaged in political activities, serving both as a deputy and a senator. Throughout his work, he fearlessly addressed pressing political and social issues while embodying the artistic trends prevalent during his era. His resolute stance against absolute power coupled with his literary achievements earned him recognition as a national hero.

Victor Hugo passed away on May 22, 1885 at the age of 83. His legacy was honored with an elaborate state funeral held at the Panthéon in Paris, which drew an astounding attendance of over two million people—the largest gathering in French history.

✵ 26. February 1802 – 22. May 1885   •   Other names Victor Marie Hugo, Виктор Гюго
Victor Hugo photo
Victor Hugo: 308   quotes 51   likes

Victor Hugo Quotes

“The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

“… where there is no more hope, song remains.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Hope

“This is the shade of meaning: the door of a physician should never be closed; the door of a priest should always be open.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Variant: A doctor’s door should never be closed, a priest's door should always be open.
Source: Les Misérables

“The holy law of Jesus Christ governs our civilisation, but it does not yet permeate it.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Law , Christ

“The owl goes not into the nest of the lark.”

Victor Hugo book The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Source: The Hunchback of Notre Dame

“Profound hearts, wise minds, take life as God makes it; it is a long trial, and unintelligible preparation for the unknown destiny.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Life , God , Heart

“Curiosity is one of the forms of feminine bravery.”

Victor Hugo

Source: Ninety-Three

“It is man's consolation that the future is to be a sunrise instead of a sunset.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Que l'avenir soit un orient au lieu d'être un couchant, c'est la consolation de l'homme.
Part I, Book II, Chapter II, Section V
William Shakespeare (1864)
Source: Les Misérables

Future

“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 book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Personality

“Who has been unhooking the stars without my permission, and putting them on the table in the guise of candles?”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Star

“There are plenty who regard a wall behind which something is happening as a very curious thing.”

Victor Hugo book The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Source: The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

“Reality in strong doses frightens.”

Victor Hugo

Source: The Toilers of the Sea

Reality , Strong

“Revolutions spring not from accident, but from necessity. A revolution is a return from the factitious to the real. It takes place because it must.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Spring

“Marius was of the temperament that sinks into grief and remains there; Cosette was of the sort that plunges in and comes out again.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Miserables

“All the human and animal manure which the world wastes, if returned to the land, instead of being thrown into the sea, would suffice to nourish the world.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

World , Animals , Sea

“Adorable ambuscades of providence!”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Les Misérables

“One does not cross-examine a saint.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Les Misérables

“God manifests himself to us in the first degree through the life of the universe, and in the second degree through the thought of man. The second manifestation is not less holy than the first. The first is named Nature, the second is named Art.”

Victor Hugo book William Shakespeare

Dieu se manifeste à nous au premier degré à travers la vie de l’univers, et au deuxième degré à travers la pensée de l’homme. La deuxième manifestation n’est pas moins sacrée que la première. La première s’appelle la Nature, la deuxième s’appelle l’Art.

Part I, Book II, Chapter I
William Shakespeare (1864)

Life , God , Art , Nature

“At what hour, please? retort to Victor Cousin, after he claimed he could pinpoint the start of the (perceived) decay of the French language: 1978.”

Victor Hugo

À quelle heure, s'il vous plaît?
Choses vues 1830-1846, Séance du 23 Novembre 1843

“From the depths of the gloom wherein you dwell, you do not see much more distinctly than we the radiant and distant portals of Eden. Only, the priests are mistaken. These holy portals are before and not behind us.”

Victor Hugo

Du fond de l'ombre où nous sommes et où vous êtes, vous ne voyez pas beaucoup plus distinctement que nous les radieuses et lointaines portes de l'éden. Seulement les prêtres se trompent. Ces portes saintes ne sont pas derrière nous, mais devant nous.
Letter To M. Daelli on Les Misérables (1862)

Distant

“To rise at six, to sleep at ten,
To sup at ten, to dine at six,
Make a man live for ten times ten.”

Victor Hugo

Lever à six, coucher à dix,
Dîner à dix, souper à six,
Font vivre l'homme dix fois dix.
Inscription in Hugo's dining room, quoted in Gustave Larroumet, La maison de Victor Hugo: Impressions de Guernesey (1895), Chapter III

Sleep , Time

“I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses.”

Victor Hugo

Though research done for Wikiquote indicates that the attribution of this remark to Hugo seems extensive on the internet, no source has been identified. It seems to be a statement a modern satirist might make, derived from one made circa 1910 by Mrs Patrick Campbell regarding homosexuals: "Does it really matter what these affectionate people do — so long as they don’t do it in the streets and frighten the horses?"
Disputed

Horse

“It is very fortunate that kings cannot err. Hence their contradictions never perplex us.”

Victor Hugo book The Man Who Laughs

The Man Who Laughs (1869)

“Homer is one of the men of genius who solve that fine problem of art — the finest of all, perhaps — truly to depict humanity by the enlargement of man: that is, to generate the real in the ideal.”

Victor Hugo book William Shakespeare

Homère est un des génies qui résolvent ce beau problème de l’art, le plus beau de tous peut-être, la peinture vraie de l’humanité obtenue par le grandissement de l’homme, c’est-à-dire la génération du réel dans l’idéal.
Part I, Book II, Chapter II, Section I
William Shakespeare (1864)

Men , Art , Problem

“The eye was in the tomb and stared at Cain.”

Victor Hugo

L'œil était dans la tombe et regardait Caïn.
La Conscience http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/La_Conscience, from La Légende des siècles (1859), First Series, Part I

“You have created a new thrill.”

Victor Hugo

Vous créez un frisson nouveau.
Letter to Charles Baudelaire (6 October 1859)

“In short, I am doing what I can, I suffer with the same universal suffering, and I try to assuage it, I possess only the puny forces of a man, and I cry to all: "Help me!"”

Victor Hugo

En somme, je fais ce que je peux, je souffre de la souffrance universelle, et je tâche de la soulager, je n'ai que les chétives forces d'un homme, et je crie à tous: aidez-moi.
Letter To M. Daelli on Les Misérables (1862)

Suffering , Universe , Help , Cry

“Waterloo! Waterloo! Waterloo! Dismal plain!”

Victor Hugo

L'Expiation http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/L%27Expiation, from Les Châtiments (1853), Book V

“At the hour of civilization through which we are now passing, and which is still so sombre, the miserable's name is Man; he is agonizing in all climes, and he is groaning in all languages.”

Victor Hugo

À l'heure, si sombre encore, de la civilisation où nous sommes, le misérable s'appelle L'HOMME; il agonise sous tous les climats, et il gémit dans toutes les langues.
Letter To M. Daelli on Les Misérables (1862)

“Whether we be Italians or Frenchmen, misery concerns us all. Ever since history has been written, ever since philosophy has meditated, misery has been the garment of the human race; the moment has at length arrived for tearing off that rag, and for replacing, upon the naked limbs of the Man-People, the sinister fragment of the past with the grand purple robe of the dawn.”

Victor Hugo

Italiens ou français, la misère nous regarde tous. Depuis que l'histoire écrit et que la philosophie médite, la misère est le vêtement du genre humain; le moment serait enfin venu d'arracher cette guenille, et de remplacer, sur les membres nus de l'Homme-Peuple, la loque sinistre du passé par la grande robe pourpre de l'aurore.
Letter To M. Daelli on Les Misérables (1862)

People , History , Tear , Past

“This is the battle between day and night… I see black light.”

Victor Hugo

C'est ici le combat du jour et de la nuit... Je vois de la lumière noire.
Last words (1885-05-22); quoted in Olympio, ou la vie de Victor Hugo by André Maurois (1954)

Light , Night

“Was it possible that Napoleon should win the battle of Waterloo? We answer, No! Why? Because of Wellington? Because of Blücher? 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!”

Victor Hugo

"The Battle of Waterloo", reported in Oliver Ernesto Branch, ed., The Hamilton Speaker (1878), p. 53

God , Law , Universe , Change

“You insist on the example [of the death penalty]. Why? For what it teaches. What do you want to teach with your example? That thou shalt not kill. And how do you teach thou shalt not kill? By killing.”

Victor Hugo

Vous tenez à l’exemple [de la peine de mort]. Pourquoi? Pour ce qu’il enseigne. Que voulez-vous enseigner avec votre exemple? Qu’il ne faut pas tuer. Et comment enseignez-vous qu’il ne faut pas tuer? En tuant.
"Plaidoyer contre la peine de mort" http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Plaidoyer_contre_la_peine_de_mort_-_Victor_Hugo [An argument against the death penalty], Assemblée Constituante, Paris (15 September 1848)

Death , Penalty

“And the navy, Papa, will come to Malta.”

Victor Hugo

Et la marine va, papa, venir à Malte.
Palindrome attributed to Hugo on the internet, but in no published sources yet found.
Disputed

“There shall be no slavery of the mind.”

Victor Hugo

Quoted by Courtlandt Palmer, president of the Nineteenth Century Club of New York, while introducing Robert G. Ingersoll as a speaker in a debate, "The Limitations of Toleration," at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York City (1888-05-08); from The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll (Dresden Publishing Company, 1902), vol. VII, p. 217

“God became a man, granted. The devil became a woman.”

Victor Hugo

Dieu s'est fait homme; soit. Le diable s'est fait femme!
Ruy Blas (1838), Act II, Scene V http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Ruy_Blas#ACTE_2_SCENE_5

God

“The need of the immaterial is the most deeply rooted of all needs. One must have bread; but before bread, one must have the ideal.”

Victor Hugo

Ce besoin de l’immatériel est le plus vivace de tous. Il faut du pain; mais avant le pain, il faut l’idéal.
" Les fleurs http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Proses_philosophiques_-_Les_Fleurs#IV," (ca. 1860 - 1865), from Oeuvres complètes (1909); published in English as The Memoirs of Victor Hugo, trans. John W. Harding (1899), Chapter VI: Love in Prison, part II

“Socialism, or the Red Republic, is all one; for it would tear down the tricolour and set up the red flag. It would make penny pieces out of the Column Vendome. It would knock down the statue of Napoleon and raise up that of Marat in its stead. It would suppress the Académie, the Ecole Polytechnique, and the Legion of Honour. To the grand device Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, it would add “Ou la mort. It would bring about a general bankruptcy. It would ruin the rich without enriching the poor. It would destroy labour, which gives to each one his bread. It would abolish property and family. It would march about with the heads of the proscribed on pikes, fill the prisons with the suspected, and empty them by massacres. It would convert France into the country of gloom. It would strangle liberty, stifle the arts, silence thought, and deny God. It would bring into action these two fatal machines, one of which never works without the other—the assignat press and the guillotine. In a word, it would do in cold blood what the men of 1793 did in fever, and after the grand horrors which our fathers saw, we should have the horrible in all that was low and small.”

Victor Hugo

Statement of May 1848, as quoted in Paris Under the Commune : Or, Seventy-Three Days of the Second Siege (1871) by John Leighton

Men , God , Family , Art

“They had done him the honor to take him for a madman, but had set him free on discovering that he was only a poet.”

Victor Hugo book The Man Who Laughs

The Man Who Laughs (1869)

“He who is a legend in his own time is ruled by that legend. It may begin in absolute innocence, but, to cover up flaws and maintain the myth of Divine Power, one must employ desperate measures.”

Victor Hugo

Attributed to Hugo in Old Gods Almost Dead : The 40-year Odyssey of the Rolling Stones (2001), by Stephen Davis, p. 557; but sourced to Illuminations by Arthur Rimbaud in Jaco : The Extraordinary and Tragic Life of Jaco Pastorius (2006) by Bill Milkowski, p. iii
Disputed

Time

“There is now, in France, in each village, a lighted torch—the schoolmaster—and a mouth which blows upon it—the curé.”

Victor Hugo book The History of a Crime

Il y a maintenant en France dans chaque village un flambeau allumé, le maître d'école, et une bouche qui souffle dessus, le curé.
Histoire d'un crime. Déposition d'un témoin (1877), Deuxième Journée. La lutte, ch. III: La barricade Saint-Antoine
T. H. Joyce and Arthur Locker (tr.), The History of a Crime: The Testimony of an Eye-Witness (1877), The Second Day, Chapter III, p. 120 http://books.google.com/books?id=CT1BkrtaFlIC&pg=PA120&dq=%22There+is+now,+in+France,%22
Translation: In every French village there is now a lighted torch, the schoolmaster; and a mouth trying to blow it out, the priest.
Huntington Smith (tr.), History of a Crime (1888), The Second Day, Chapter III, p. 187 http://books.google.com/books?id=idfUAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA187&dq=%22In+every+French+village+there+is+now+a+lighted+torch%22
Variants: There is in every village a torch: The schoolteacher/teacher. And an extinguisher: The priest/clergyman.

Light

“Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled. Of that divine tear and that human smile is composed the sweetness of the present civilization.”

Victor Hugo

Jésus a pleuré, Voltaire a souri; c’est de cette larme divine et de ce sourire humain qu’est faite la douceur de la civilisation actuelle.
Speech, "Le centenaire de Voltaire" http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Actes_et_paroles_-_Depuis_l%E2%80%99exil_-_1878#II_LE_CENTENAIRE_DE_VOLTAIRE, on the 100th anniversary of the death of Voltaire, Théâtre de la Gaîté, Paris (30 May 1878); published in Actes et paroles - Depuis l'exil (1878)

Smile , Tear