Victor Hugo quotes - page 19

Sing, laugh; be happy, be famous; Each one of you will soon be in the darkness. (Victor Hugo)
I see a new light. View quote
Victor Hugo
If it should happen some day that a man, having in his hand the five hundred thousand officeholders who constitute the government, and the four hundred thousand soldiers composing the army, if it should happen that this man should tear up the Constitution, should violate every law, break every oath, trample upon every right, commit every crime, do you know what your irremovable magistrates, instructors in the right, and guardians of the law, would do? They would hold their tongues. View quote
Victor Hugo
Let us proclaim it aloud, let us proclaim it in our fall and in our defeat, this is the greatest of all ages! and do you know the reason why? because it is the mildest. View quote
Victor Hugo
Evil. Mistrust those who rejoice at it even more than those who do it. View quote
Victor Hugo
Hope is the word which God has written on the brow of every man. View quote
Victor Hugo
Youth is the future smiling at a stranger, which is itself. View quote
Victor Hugo
A day will come when markets, open to trade, and minds, open to ideas, will become the sole battlefield. View quote
Victor Hugo
There are, as we know, powerful and illustrious atheists. At bottom, led back to the truth by their very force, they are not absolutely sure that they are atheists; it is with them only a question of definition, and in any case, if they do not believe in God, being great minds, they prove God. View quote
Victor Hugo
It seemed to be a necessary ritual that he should prepare himself for sleep by meditating under the solemnity of the night sky... a mysterious transaction between the infinity of the soul and the infinity of the universe. View quote
Victor Hugo
From a political point of view, there is but one principle, the sovereignty of man over himself. This sovereignty of myself over myself is called Liberty. (Victor Hugo)
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 murders. The great dangers are within us. Why worry about what threatens our heads or purses Let us think instead of what threatens our souls. View quote
Victor Hugo
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. View quote
Victor Hugo
In this world, which is so plainly the antechamber of another, there are no happy men. The true division of humanity is between those who live in light and those who live in darkness. Our aim must be to diminish the number of the latter and increase the number of the former. That is why we demand education and knowledge. View quote
Victor Hugo
Superstition, bigotry and prejudice, ghosts though they are, cling tenaciously to life they are shades armed with tooth and claw. They must be grappled with unceasingly, for it is a fateful part of human destiny that it is condemned to wage perpetual war against ghosts. A shade is not easily taken by the throat and destroyed. View quote
Victor Hugo
Daring is the price of progress. All splendid conquests are the prize of boldness, more or less. View quote
Victor Hugo
Marius and Cosette did not ask where this would lead them. They looked at themselves as arrived. It is a strange pretension for men to ask that love should lead them somewhere. View quote
Victor Hugo
So your desire is to do nothing? Well, you shall not have a week, a day, an hour, free from oppression. You shall not be able to lift anything without agony. Every passing minute will make your muscles crack. What is feather to others will be a rock to you. The simplest things will become difficult. Life will become monstrous about you. To come, to go, to breathe, will be so many terrible tasks for you. Your lungs will feel like a hundred-pound weight. View quote
Victor Hugo
Can human nature ever be wholly and radically transformed? Can the man whom God made good be made wicked by man? Can the soul be reshaped in its entirety by destiny and made evil because destiny is evil? Can the heart become misshapen and afflicted with ugly, incurable deformities under disproportionate misfortune, like a spinal column bent beneath a too low roof? View quote
Victor Hugo
Do not ask the name of the person who seeks a bed for the night. He who is reluctant to give his name is the one who most needs shelter. View quote
Victor Hugo
What is called honors and dignities, and even honor and dignity, is generally fool's gold. (Victor Hugo)
Loving is half of believing. View quote
Victor Hugo
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. View quote
Victor Hugo
From the oyster to the eagle, from the swine to the tiger, all animals are to be found in men and each of them exists in some man, sometimes several at the time. Animals are nothing but the portrayal of our virtues and vices made manifest to our eyes, the visible reflections of our souls. God displays them to us to give us food for thought. View quote
Victor Hugo
True thinkers are characterized by a blending of clearness and mystery. View quote
Victor Hugo