Quotes from Victor Hugo

Love that is not jealous is neither true nor pure.

My childhood began, as everybody's childhood begins, with prejudices. Man finds prejudices beside his cradle, puts them from him a little in the course of his career, and often, alas! takes to them again in his old age.

By putting forward the hands of the clock you shall not advance the hour.

What Shakespeare was able to do in English he would certainly not have done in French.

Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.

The soul has illusions as the bird has wings: it is supported by them.

Sorrow is a fruit. God does not make it grow on limbs too weak to bear it.

There is in every village a torch - the teacher; and an extinguisher - the priest.

We teachers make the road, others will make the journey.

I'd like a drink. I desire to forget life. Life is a hideous invention by somebody I don't know. It doesn't last, and it's good for nothing. You break your neck simply living.

It is a terrible thing to be happy! How pleased we are with it! How all-sufficient we think it! How, being in possession of the false aim of life, happiness, we forget the true aim, duty!

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

Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.

Habit is the nursery of errors.

It is from books that wise people derive consolation in the troubles of life.

Initiative is doing the right thing without being told.

Puns are the droppings of soaring wits.

A faith is a necessity to a man. Woe to him who believes in nothing.

To think of shadows is a serious thing.

I am a soul. I know well that what I shall render up to the grave is not myself. That which is myself will go elsewhere. Earth, thou art not my abyss!

Concision in style, precision in thought, decision in life.

At a certain depth of distress, the poor, in their stupor, groan no longer over evil, and are no longer thankful for good.

All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come.

If a writer wrote merely for his time, I would have to break my pen and throw it away.