Quotes from Victor Hugo

His mind could do without faith, but his heart could not do without friendship.

No Prefect of Police believes that a cat can turn into a lion; nevertheless the thing happens...

There is still a certain grace in a dead festival. It has been happy. Upon those chairs in disarray, among those flowers which are withering, under those extinguished lights, there have been thoughts of joy.

On the contrary, as there is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher, everything was given away, so to speak, before it was received, like water on thirsty soil; it was well that money came to him, for he never kept any, and besides he robbed himself.

Death does not concern me. He who takes his first step uses perhaps his last shoes. (Halmalo)

Am I not as much a doctor as they? I too have my patients; in the first place, theirs, whom they call sick; and then my own, whom I call unfortunate.

She talked thus, bent double, shaken with sobs, blinded by tears, her neck bare, clenching her hands, coughing with a dry and short cough, stammering very feebly with an agonised voice. Great grief is a divine and terrible radiance which transfigures the wretched. At that moment Fantine had again become beautiful. At certain instants she stopped and tenderly kissed the policeman's coat. She would have softened a heart of granite; but you cannot soften a heart of wood

He had not lived long enough to have discovered that nothing is more close at hand than the impossible, and what must be looked for is the unforeseen.

Red, for the blood of angry men, black, for the night that will finally end.

Strong and bitter wordes indicate a weak cause.

Que lo pongan a uno en libertad no quiere decir que lo liberen de la condena. Del presidio se sale; de la condena, no.

He believed that faith gives health. He sought to counsel and calm the despairing by pointing out the Man of Resignation, and to transform the grief that contemplates the grave by showing it the grief that looks up to the stars.

All history is nothing but wearisome repetition. One century is the plagiarist of the other.

I have just met Marius' new hat and new coat, with Marius inside them.

Indeed, is not that all, and what more can be desired? A little garden to walk, and immensity to reflect on. At his feet something to cultivate and gather; above his head something to study and meditate upon: a few flowers on the earth, and all the stars in the sky.

All has happened to her that will happen to her. She has felt everything, borne everything, experienced everything, suffered everything, lost everything, mourned everything. She is resigned, with that resignation which resembles indifference, as death resembles sleep. She no longer avoids anything. Let all the clouds fall upon her, and all the ocean sweep over her! What matters it to her? She is a sponge that is soaked.

M. Myriel had to undergo the fate of every newcomer in a little town, where there are many mouths which talk, and very few heads which think. He was obliged to undergo it although he was a bishop, and because he was a bishop. But after all, the rumors with which his name was connected were rumors only,—noise, sayings, words; less than words— palabres, as the energetic language of the South expresses it.

In the future no one will kill anyone, the earth will shine, the human race will love. It will come, citizens, the day when all will be peace, harmony, light, joy, and life, it will come. And it is so that it comes that we are going to die.

There are certain natures which cannot have love on one side without hatred on the other.

Il y a des illusions touchantes qui sont peut-être des réalités sublimes.

Be it true or false, what is said about men often has as much influence upon their lives, and especially upon their destinies, as what they do.

Il y a des gens qui paieraient pour se vendre

Who goes there? At the same time, the click of guns, as they were lowered into position, was heard. Enjolras replied in a haughty and vibrating tone:— The French Revolution!

Every torment they had experienced was returned to them an intoxication. It seemed to them that the griefs , the sleeplessness, the tears, the anguish, the dismay, the despair, became caresses and radiance...and that their sorrows were so many servants preparing their joy. To have suffered, how good it is! Their grief made a halo around their happiness.