Victor Hugo Quotes

Mirrors, those revealers of the truth, are hated; that does not prevent them from being of use.

The greatest products of architecture are less the works of individuals than of society; rather the offspring of a nation's effort, than the inspired flash of a man of genius.

Desiring always to be in mourning, he clothed himself with night.

The supreme ordeal, let us say rather, the only ordeal, is the loss of the beloved being.

A breath of Paris preserves the soul.

When two mouths, made sacred by love, draw near to each other to create, it is impossible, that above that ineffable kiss there should not be a thrill in the immense mystery of the stars.

Memory is a gulf that a word can move to its lowest depths.

There is a way of meeting error while on the road of truth.

Houses are like the human beings that inhabit them.

To rove about, musing, that is to say loitering, is, for a philosopher, a good way of spending time.

And so, being in Heaven, it was easy for him to lose sight of earth.

Monsieur' to a convict is a glass of water to a man dying of thirst at sea; ignominy thirsts for respect.

The repose of darkness is deeper on the water than on the land.

Spira, spera. (breathe, hope)

Sire, you are looking at a plain man, and I am looking at a great man. Each of us may benefit.

Oh! Everything I loved!

It is grievous for a man to leave behind him a shadow in his own shape.

That men saw his mask, but the bishop saw his face. That men saw his life, but the bishop saw his conscience.

To divinise is human, to humanise is divine.

‎"Dost thou understand? I love thee!" he cried again."What love!" said the unhappy girl with a shudder.He resumed,--"The love of a damned soul.

Sublime upon sublime scarcely presents a contrast, and we need a little rest from everything, even the beautiful.

This book should be read as one would read the book of a dead man.

In 1815, M. Charles-Francois-Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of D—— He was an old man of about seventy-five years of age; he had occupied the see of D—— since 1806.

Philosophy should be an energy; it should find its aim and its effect in the amelioration of mankind.

We are given up to those gods, those monsters, those giants, — our thoughts.

Joy is the reflex of terror.

If she gives me all her time it is because I have all her heart.

It is the peculiarity of grief to bring out the childish side of man.

A poet is a world enclosed in a man.

I am an intelligent river which has reflected successively all the banks before which it has flowed by meditating only on the images offered by those changing shores.

There are no trifles in the human story, no trifling leaves on the tree.

Creation lives, grows, and multiplies; man is but a witness.

What dangers you run, O noble souls! Often, you give your heart, but we take only your body. Your heart is left to you and you look at it in the shadows and shudder.

Women are more credulous than men.

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

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

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

More powerful than the mighty armies is an idea whose time has come.

where the telescope ends the microscope begins, and who can say which has the wider vision?

Sin is a gravitation.

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

Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over, this is recognised: that the human race has been harshly treated, but that it has advanced.

A library implies an act of faith which generations, still in darkness hid, sign in their night in witness of the dawn." (1872)

As for methods of prayer, all are good, as long as they are sincere.

The human soul has still greater need of the ideal than of the real. It is by the real that we exist, it is by the ideal that we live.

In joined hands there is still some token of hope, in the clinched fist none.

Le ciel était absolument noir, il n'y avait plus d'étoiles, mais évidemment il en voyait une.

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

Un sceptique qui adhère à un croyant cela est simple comme la loi des couleurs complémentaires.Ce qui nous manque nous attire.

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