Quotes from Victor Hugo

For prying into any human affairs, none are equal to those whom it does not concern.

If you wish to gain an idea of what revolution is, call it Progress; and if you wish to acquire an idea of the nature of progress, call it To-morrow.

Many people in Paris are quite content to look on at others, and there are plenty who regard a wall behind which something is happening as a very curious thing.

When one has but a single idea he finds in it everything.

We chip away as best we can at the mysterious block of marble our lives are made of- in vain; the black vein of destiny always reappears.

Just see how idiotic one can be! One reckons without the good God.

You were right to come to see a dying man. It is right that these moments should have witnesses. Everyone has his dream; I would like to live till dawn, but I know I have less than three hours left. It will be night, but no matter. Dying is simple. It does not take daylight. So be it: I will die by starlight

El futuro tiene muchos nombres. Para los débiles es lo inalcanzable. Para los temerosos, lo desconocido. Para los valientes es la oportunidad

Il possédait comme tout le monde sa terminaison en iste, sans laquelle personne n'aurait pu vivre en ce temps-là, mais il n'était ni royaliste, ni bonapartiste, ni chartiste, ni orléaniste, ni anarchiste; il était bouquiniste.

Nothing is so logical and nothing appears so absurd as the ocean.

To love or to have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further.

So how do magistrates understand the word civilization? Where do we stand with it? Justice reduced to subterfuge and trickery! The law to machinations! Appalling!

The most powerful symptom of love is a tenderness which becomes at times almost insupportable.

Vulgarity is an old Narcissus who adores himself and applauds the common vulgarity.

He loved to saunter through fields of wild oats and corn-flowers, and busied himself with clouds nearly as much as with events.

Particularly at those moments when we have the sorest need of grasping the sharp realities of life do the threads of thought snap off in the brain. 

At certain moments, the foot slips ; at others, the ground gives way. How many times had that conscience, furious for the right, grasped and overwhelmed him! How many times had truth, inexorable, planted her knee upon his breast! How many times, thrown to the ground by the light, had he cried to it for mercy!

I make little account of victory. Nothing is so stupid as to vanquish; the real glory is to convince.

With a tiny bit of effort, the nettle would be useful; if you neglect it, it becomes a pest. So then we kill it. How many men are like nettles... My friends, there is no such thing as a weed and no such thing as a bad man. There are only bad cultivators.

La pensée est le labeur de l'intelligence, la rêverie en est la volupté.

Never, even among animals, does the creature born to be a dove change into an osprey. That is only seen among men.

I propose a toast to mirth; be merry! Let us complete our course of law by folly and eating! Indigestion and the digest. let Justinian be the male, and Feasting, the female! Joy the depths! Live, O creation! The world is a great diamond. I am happy. The birds are astonishing. What a festival everywhere! The nightingale is a gratuitous Elleviou. Summer, I salute thee!

Monsieur, innocence is its own crown. Innocence has no truck with highness. It is as august in rags as it is draped in the fleur-de-lis.

He said to himself that he really had not suffered enough to deserve such radiant happiness, and he thanked God, in the depths of his soul, for having permitted that he, a miserable man, should be so loved by this innocent being. -Jean Valjean about Cossette-