Quotes from Victor Hugo

The life of the cenobite is a human problem. When we speak of convents, those seats of error but innocence, of mistaken views but good intentions, of ignorance but devotion, of torment but martyrdom, we must nearly always say yes or no...The monastery is a renunciation. Self-sacrifice, even when misdirected, is still self-sacrifice. To assume as duty a strict error has its peculiar grandeur.

What pleases us in those who are rising is less pleasing in those who are falling. We do not admire the combat when there is no danger; and in any case, the combatants of the first hour alone have the right to be the exterminators in the last. He who has not been a determined accuser during prosperity should hold his peace in adversity. He alone who denounces the success has a right to proclaim the justice of the downfall.

In the Twentieth Century war will be dead, the scaffold will be dead, hatred will be dead, frontier boundaries will be dead, dogmas will be dead; man will live. He will possess something higher than all these-a great country, the whole earth, and a great hope, the whole heaven.

No corruption is possible with the diamond.

There is a way of avoiding which resembles seeking.

Se dice que en toda manada de lobos hay un perro al que la loba mata, porque si lo deja vivir al crecer devoraría a los demás cachorros. Dad un rostro humano a este perro hijo de loba y tendréis el retrato de aquel hombre.

If there is anything more heart-breaking than a body perishing for lack of bread, it is a soul which is dying from hunger for the light.

With the exercise of a little care, the nettle could be made useful; it is neglected and it becomes hurtful. It is exterminated. How many men resemble the nettle! He added with a pause: Remember this, my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators.

A wretched woman is more unfortunate than a wretched man, because she is an instrument of pleasure.

La suprema dicha de la vida, es la convicción de que se es amado; amado por sí mismo, digamos mejor, ama¬do a pesar de sí mismo.

To blame or praise men on account of the result, is almost like praising or blaming figures on account of the sum total. Whatever is to happen, happens; whatever is to blow, blows. The eternal serenity does not suffer from these north winds. Above Revolutions, Truth and Justice reign, as the starry heavens above the tempest.

We say and exclaim within ourselves without breaking silence, in a tumult wherein everything speaks except our mouth. The realities of the soul are none the less real for being invisible and impalpable.

Hope is the Word which God has written on the brow of every man.

It is nothing to die. It is dreadful not to live.

Si tout autour de moi, est monotone et décoloré, n'y a-t-il pas en moi une tempête, une lutte, une tragédie?

He who has seen the misery of man only has seen nothing, he must see the misery of woman; he who has seen the misery of woman only has seen nothing, he must see the misery of childhood.

As we see, he had a strange and peculiar way of judging things. I suspect that he acquired it from the Gospel.

Thus is youth constituted; it quickly wipes its eye; it believes sorrow useless and does not accept it. Youth is the smile of the future before an unknown being which is itself. It is natural for it to be happy. IT seems as though it breathed hope.

Happy, even in anguish, is he to whom God has given a soul worthy of love and grief! He who has not seen the things of this world, and the heart of men in this double light, has seen nothing, and knows noting of the truth.

When one does wrong, one must do it thoroughly.

In a little town, there are many mouths which talk, and very few heads which think.

Water! pretending to be pure, thou resemblest false friends. Thou art warm at the top and cold at bottom.

There are instincts which respond to all the chance meetings in life. The little girl was not afraid.

The death agony of the barricade was about to begin. For, since the preceding evening, the two rows of houses in the Rue de la Chanvrerie had become two walls; ferocious walls, doors closed, windows closed, shutters closed. A house is an escarpment, a door is a refusal, a facade is a wall. This wall hears, sees and will not. It might open and save you. No. This wall is a judge. It gazes at you and condemns you. What dismal things are closed houses.