Victor Hugo Quotes

Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent

He never went out without a book under his arm, and he often came back with two.

Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.

What Is Love? I have met in the streets a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.

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

To put everything in balance is good, to put everything in harmony is better.

It is nothing to die. It is frightful not to live.

Not being heard is no reason for silence.

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.

The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only.

Love is like a tree: it grows by itself, roots itself deeply in our being and continues to flourish over a heart in ruin. The inexplicable fact is that the blinder it is, the more tenacious it is. It is never stronger than when it is completely unreasonable.

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved -- loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.

Laughter is sunshine, it chases winter from the human face.

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.

Those who do not weep, do not see.

To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.

If I speak, I am condemned. If I stay silent, I am damned!

You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love, is to live by it.

You ask me what forces me to speak? a strange thing; my conscience.

Reason is intelligence taking exercise. Imagination is intelligence with an erection.

Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees.

A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in--what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.

He who opens a school door, closes a prison.

People do not lack strength, they lack will.

There is nothing like a dream to create the future.

A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labor and there is invisible labor.

Nothing makes a man so adventurous as an empty pocket.

Life's great happiness is to be convinced we are loved.

He was fond of books, for they are cool and sure friends

No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.

Melancholy is the happiness of being sad.

The pupil dilates in darkness and in the end finds light, just as the soul dilates in misfortune and in the end finds God.

Teach the ignorant as much as you can; society is culpable in not providing a free education for all and it must answer for the night which it produces. If the soul is left in darkness sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.

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

There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.

An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise.

What makes night within us may leave stars.

Love is the foolishness of men, and the wisdom of God.

I have been loving you a little more every minute since this morning.

There is something more terrible than a hell of suffering--a hell of boredom.

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.

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

To die for lack of love is horrible. The asphyxia of the soul.

Before him he saw two roads, both equally straight; but he did see two; and that terrified him--he who had never in his life known anything but one straight line. And, bitter anguish, these two roads were contradictory.

No one is just a victim or a victor. Everyone is somewhere in between. People who go around casting themselves as one or the other are not only kidding themselves, but they’re also painfully unoriginal.

Promise to give me a kiss on my brow when I am dead. --I shall feel it." She dropped her head again on Marius' knees, and her eyelids closed. He thought the poor soul had departed. Eponine remained motionless. All at once, at the very moment when Marius fancied her asleep forever, she slowly opened her eyes in which appeared the sombre profundity of death, and said to him in a tone whose sweetness seemed already to proceed from another world:-- "And by the way, Monsieur Marius, I believe that I was a little bit in love with you.

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

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.

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

When love has fused and mingled two beings in a sacred and angelic unity, the secret of life has been discovered so far as they are concerned; they are no longer anything more than the two boundaries of the same destiny; they are no longer anything but the two wings of the same spirit. Love, soar.

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

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

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

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

What a grand thing, to be loved! What a grander thing still, to love!

Let us sacrifice one day to gain perhaps a whole life.

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_)

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

When you get an idea into your head you find it in everything.

Nobody loves the light like the blind man.

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

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.

The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves—say rather, loved in spite of ourselves.

Love has no middle term; either it destroys, or it saves. All human destiny is this dilemma. This dilemma, destruction or salvation, no fate proposes more inexorably than love. Love is life, if it is not death. Cradle; coffin, too. The same sentiment says yes and no in the human heart. Of all the things God has made, the human heart is the one that sheds most light, and alas! most night.

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.

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

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.

Spira, spera. (breathe, hope)

What is said about men often has as much influence upon their lives, and especially upon their destinies, as what they do.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Love is the only future God offers.

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.

Being good is easy, what is difficult is being just.

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

Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.

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!

Common sense is in spite of, not the result of, education.

Curiosity is gluttony. To see is to devour.

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

To die is nothing; but it is terrible not to live.

The paradise of the rich is made out of the hell of the poor.

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

Diamonds are found only in the dark bowels of the earth; truths are found only in the depths of thought. It seemed to him that after descending into those depths after long groping in the blackest of this darkness, he had at last found one of these diamonds, one of these truths, and that he held it in his hand; and it blinded him to look at it. (pg. 231)

We pray together, we are afraid together, and then we go to sleep. Even if Satan came into the house, no one would interfere. After all, what is there to fear in this house? There is always one with us who is the strongest. Satan may visit our house, but the good Lord lives here.

Nothing discernible to the eye of the spirit is more brilliant or obscure than man; nothing is more formidable, complex, mysterious, and infinite. There is a prospect greater than the sea, and it is the sky; there is a prospect greater than the sky, and it is the human soul.

Have no fear of robbers or murderers. They are external dangers, petty dangers. We should fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices the real murderers. The great dangers are within us. Why worry about what threatens our heads or our purses? Let us think instead of what threatens our souls.

Nobody deserves anything,” Evelyn says. “It's simply a matter of who's willing to go and take it for themselves. And you, Monique, are a person who has proven to be willing to go out there and take what you want. So be honest about that. No one is just a victim or a victor. Everyone is somewhere in between. People who go around casting themselves as one or the other are not only kidding themselves, but they're also painfully unoriginal.

Do you know what friendship is?' he asked. 'Yes,' replied the gypsy; 'it is to be brother and sister; two souls which touch without mingling, two fingers on one hand.' 'And love?' pursued Gringoire. 'Oh! love!' said she, and her voice trembled, and her eye beamed. 'That is to be two and to be but one. A man and a woman mingled into one angel. It is heaven.

So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation which, in the midst of civilization, artificially creates a hell on earth, and complicates with human fatality a destiny that is divine; so long as the three problems of the century - the degradation of man by the exploitation of his labour, the ruin of women by starvation and the atrophy of childhood by physical and spiritual night are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words and from a still broader point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, there should be a need for books such as this.

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.

She let her head fall back upon Marius' knees and her eyelids closed. He thought that poor soul had gone. Eponine lay motionless; but just when Marius supposed her for ever asleep, she slowly opened her eyes in which the gloomy deepness of death appeared, and said to him with an accent the sweetness on which already seemed to come from another world: "And then, do you know, Monsieur Marius, I believe I was a little in love with you." She essayed to smile again and expired.

He fell to the seat, she by his side. There were no more words. The stars were beginning to shine. How was it that the birds sing, that the snow melts, that the rose opens, that May blooms, that the dawns whitens behind the black trees on the shivering summit of the hills? One kiss, and that was all. Both trembled, and they looked at each other in the darkness with brilliant eyes. They felt neither the cool night, nor the cold stone, nor the damp ground, nor the wet grass; they looked at each other, and their hearts were full of thought. They had clasped hands, without knowing it. She did not ask him; did not even think where and how he had managed to get into the garden. It seemed so natural to her that he should be there. From time to time Marius’ knee touched Cosette’s. A touch that thrilled. At times, Cosette faltered out a word. Her soul trembled on her lips like a drop of dew on a flower. Gradually, they began to talk. Overflow succeeded to silence, which is fullness. The night was serene and glorious above their heads. These two beings, pure as spirits, told each other everything, their dreams, their frenzies, their ecstasies, their chimeras, their despondencies, how they had adored each other from afar, how they had longed for each other, their despair when they had ceased to see each other. They had confided to each other in an intimacy of the ideal, which already, nothing could have increased, all that was most hidden and most mysterious in themselves. They told each other, with a candid faith in their illusions, all that love, youth and the remnant of childhood that was theirs, brought to mind. These two hearts poured themselves out to each other, so that at the end of an hour, it was the young man who had the young girl’s soul and the young girl who had the soul of the young man. They interpenetrated, they enchanted, they dazzled each other. When they had finished, when they had told each other everything, she laid her head on his shoulder, and asked him: "What is your name?" My name is Marius," he said. "And yours?" My name is Cosette.

Let us say in passing, to be blind and to be loved, is in fact--on this earth where nothing is complete--one of the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness. To have continually at your side a woman, a girl, a sister, a charming being, who is there because you need her, and because she cannot do without you, to know you are indispensable to someone necessary to you, to be able at all times to measure her affection by the degree of the presence that she gives you, and to say to yourself: She dedicates all her time to me, because I possess her whole love; to see the thought if not the face; to be sure of the fidelity of one being in a total eclipse of the world; to imagine the rustling of her dress as the rustling of wings; to hear her moving to and fro, going out, coming in, talking, singing, to think that you are the cause of those steps, those words, that song; to show your personal attraction at every moment; to feel even more powerful as your infirmity increases; to become in darkness, and by reason of darkness, the star around which this angel gravitates; few joys can equal that. The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves--say rather, loved in spite of ourselves; the conviction the blind have. In their calamity, to be served is to be caressed. Are they deprived of anything? No. Light is not lost where love enters. And what a love! A love wholly founded in purity. There is no blindness where there is certainty.

Algebra applies to the clouds, the radiance of the star benefits the rose--no thinker would dare to say that the perfume of the hawthorn is useless to the constellations. Who could ever calculate the path of a molecule? How do we know that the creations of worlds are not determined by falling grains of sand? Who can understand the reciprocal ebb and flow of the infinitely great and the infinitely small, the echoing of causes in the abyss of being and the avalanches of creation? A mite has value; the small is great, the great is small. All is balanced in necessity; frightening vision for the mind. There are marvelous relations between beings and things, in this inexhaustible whole, from sun to grub, there is no scorn, each needs the other. Light does not carry terrestrial perfumes into the azure depths without knowing what it does with them; night distributes the stellar essence to the sleeping plants. Every bird that flies has the thread of the infinite in its claw. Germination includes the hatching of a meteor and the tap of a swallow's beak breaking the egg, and it guides the birth of the earthworm, and the advent of Socrates. Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has a greater view? Choose. A bit of mold is a pleiad of flowers; a nebula is an anthill of stars. The same promiscuity, and still more wonderful, between the things of the intellect and material things. Elements and principles are mingled, combined, espoused, multiplied one by another, to the point that the material world, and the moral world are brought into the same light. Phenomena are perpetually folded back on themselves. In the vast cosmic changes, universal life comes and goes in unknown quantities, rolling everything up in the invisible mystery of the emanations, using everything, losing no dream from any single sleep, sowing a microscopic animal here, crumbling a star there, oscillating and gyrating, making a force of light, and an element of thought, disseminated and indivisible dissolving all, that geometric point, the self; reducing everything to the soul-atom; making everything blossom into God; entangling from the highest to the lowest, all activities in the obscurity of a dizzying mechanism, linking the flight of an insect to the movement of the earth, subordinating--who knows, if only by the identity of the law--the evolutions of the comet in the firmament to the circling of the protozoa in the drop of water. A machine made of mind. Enormous gearing, whose first motor is the gnat, and whose last is the zodiac.