Victor Hugo Quotes

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The production of souls is the secret of unfathomable depth.

Thought is the labor of the intellect, reverie is its pleasure.

A smile is the same as sunshine; it banishes winter from the human countenance.

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

The wise man does not grow old, but ripens.

Dreaming is happiness. Waiting is life.

Mankind is not a circle with a single center but an ellipse with two focal points of which facts are one and ideas the other.

God has set his intentions in the flowers, in the dawn, in the spring, it is his will that we should love.

Morality is truth in full bloom.

A day will come when a cannon will be exhibited in museums, just as instruments of torture are now, and the people will be astonished that such a thing could have been.

Great perils have this beauty, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers.

It is God who makes woman beautiful, it is the devil who makes her pretty.

I think, therefore I doubt.

And then, strange to say, the first symptom of true love in a young man is timidity; in a girl, it is boldness.

When a person opens a book, he can never be in prison.

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

All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come.

Ma vie est une énigme dont ton nom est le mot. (My life is an enigma, of which your name is the word.)

You look at a star for two reasons, because it is luminous, and because it is impenetrable. You have beside you a sweeter radiance and a greater mystery, woman.

There is no distress so complete but that even in the most critical moments the inexplicable sunrise of hope is seen in its depths.

One only needs to see a smile in a white crape bonnet in order to enter the palace of dreams.

My day's work will begin again the next morning. The tomb is not a blind alley.

A translation in verse . . . seems to me something absurd, impossible.

The guillotine is the ultimate expression of Law, and its name is vengeance; it is not neutral, nor does it allow us to remain neutral.

There is a spectacle more grand than the sea; it is heaven; there is a spectacle more grand than heaven; it is the conscience.

There is in every village a torch - the teacher; and an extinguisher - the priest.

If a man has his throat cut in Paris, it's a murder. If 50,000 people are murdered in the east, it is a question.

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

Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause.

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

Wisdom is the health of the soul.

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

Nothing makes a man so adventurous as an empty pocket.

If you don't build castles in the air you won't build anything on the ground.

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

Wisdom is a sacred communion.

The drama is complete poetry. The ode and the epic contain it only in germ; it contains both of them in a state of high development, and epitomizes both.

The delight we inspire in others has this enchanting peculiarity that, far from being diminished like every other reflection, it returns to us more radiant than ever.

What is history? An echo of the past in the future; a reflex from the future on the past.

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

Puns are the droppings of soaring wits.

Pain is as diverse as man. One suffers as one can.

Between the government which does evil and the people who accept it - there is a certain shameful solidarity.

Symmetry is ennui, and ennui is the very essence of grief and melancholy. Despair yawns.

Caution is the eldest child of wisdom.

Not being heard is no reason for silence.

A war between Europeans is a civil war.

The clouds, - the only birds that never sleep.

Nature, like a kind and smiling mother, lends herself to our dreams and cherishes our fancies.