Quotes from Victor Hugo

The soul aids the body, and at certain moments, raises it. It is the only bird which bears up its own cage.

So you're giving up? That's it? Okay, okay. We'll leave you alone, Quasimodo. We just thought, maybe you're made up of something much stronger.

The real threat to society is darkness. Humanity is our common lot. All men are made of the same clay. There is no difference, at least here on earth, in the fate assigned to us. We come of the same void, inhabit the same flesh, are dissolved in the same ashes. But ignorance infecting the human substance turns it black, and that incurable blackness, gaining possession of the soul, becomes Evil.

We say that slavery has vanished from European civilization, but this is not true. Slavery still exists, but now it applies only to women and its name is prostitution.

Anger may be foolish and absurd, and one may be wrongly irritated, but a man never feels outraged unless in some respect he is fundamentally right.

Youth is the future smiling at a stranger, which is itself.

I never realized my ugliness till now. When I compared myself with you, I pity myself indeed, poor unhappy monster that I am! I must seem to you like some awful beast, eh? You,-you are a sunbeam, a drop of dew, a bird's song! As for me, I am something frightful, neither man nor beast,- a nondescript object, more hard, shapeless, and more trodden under foot than a pebble!

superfluous

Is there not in every human soul a primitive spark, a divine element, incorruptible in this world and immortal in the next, which can be developed by goodness, kindled, lit up, and made to radiate, and which evil can never entirely extinguish.

Phoebus de Chateaupers likewise came to a 'tragic end': he married.

If we wish to be happy, monsieur, we must never comprehend duty; for, as soon as we comprehend it, it is implacable. One would say that it punishes you for comprehending it; but no, it rewards you for it; for it puts you into a hell where you feel God at your side.

Animals are nothing but the portrayal of our virtues and vices made manifest to our eyes, the visible reflections of our souls.

Good night! Good night! Far flies the light; But still God's love Shall shine above, Making all bright, Good night! Good night!

These are true felicities. No joy beyond these joys. Love is the only ecstasy, everything else weeps

There is a way of avoiding a person which resembles a search.

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

He had, they said, tasted in succession all the apples of the tree of knowledge, and, whether from hunger or disgust, had ended by tasting the forbidden fruit.

A criminal remains a criminal whether he uses a convict's suit or a monarch's crown.

She gave anyone who saw her a sensation of April and of dawn. There was dew in her eyes. Cosette was a condensation of auroral light in womanly form.

To destroy abuses is not enough; habits must be changed.

If one could only get out of a grief as one gets out of a city!

Teach the ignorant as much as you can. Society is to blame for not giving free education: it is responsible for the darkness it creates. the soul in darkness sins, but the real sinner is he who caused the darkness

One resists the invasion of armies; one does not resist the invasion of ideas. a

Happiness wishes everybody happy.