Victor Hugo quotes

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

— Victor Hugo

“No one ever keeps a secret so well as a child.”

— Victor Hugo

“It is by suffering that human beings become angels.”

— Victor Hugo

“No one knows like a woman how to say things which are at once gentle and deep. ”

— Victor Hugo

“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.”

— Victor Hugo

“Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled. From that divine tear and from that human smile is derived the grace of present civilization. ”

— Victor Hugo

“Our life dreams the Utopia. Our death achieves the Ideal.”

— Victor Hugo

“Many great actions are committed in small struggles.”

— Victor Hugo

“To rise from error to truth is rare and beautiful.”

— Victor Hugo

“There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time as come.”

— Victor Hugo

“Civil war? What does that mean? Is there any foreign war? Isn't every war fought between men, between brothers? ”

— Victor Hugo

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

— Victor Hugo

“There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees.”

— Victor Hugo

“One is not idle because one is absorbed. There is both visible and invisible labor. To contemplate is to toil, to think is to do. The crossed arms work, the clasped hands act. The eyes upturned to Heaven are an act of creation.”

— Victor Hugo

“Nations, like stars, are entitled to eclipse. All is well, provided the light returns and the eclipse does not become endless night. Dawn and resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is the same as the survival of the soul. ”

— Victor Hugo

“He, who every morning plans the transactions of the day, and follows that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through a labyrinth of the most busy life. ”

— Victor Hugo

“I'm religiously opposed to religion.”

— Victor Hugo

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

— Victor Hugo

“Love is a portion of the soul itself, and it is of the same nature as the celestial breathing of the atmosphere of paradise.”

— Victor Hugo

“A war between Europeans is a civil war.”

— Victor Hugo

“Freedom in art, freedom in society, this is the double goal towards which all consistent and logical minds must strive.”

— Victor Hugo

“To be perfectly happy it does not suffice to possess happiness, it is necessary to have deserved it. ”

— Victor Hugo

“To love is to act.”

— Victor Hugo

“Blessed be Providence which has given to each his toy: the doll to the child, the child to the woman, the woman to the man, the man to the devil! ”

— Victor Hugo

“The man who does not know other languages, unless he is a man of genius, necessarily has deficiencies in his ideas. ”

— Victor Hugo

“ The ideal and the beautiful are identical; the ideal corresponds to the idea, and beauty to form; hence idea and substance are cognate.”

— Victor Hugo

“As a means of contrast with the sublime, the grotesque is, in our view, the richest source that nature can offer.”

— Victor Hugo

“When liberty returns, I will return.”

— Victor Hugo

“It is often necessary to know how to obey a woman in order sometimes to have the right to command her.”

— Victor Hugo

“One sees qualities at a distance and defects at close range.”

— Victor Hugo