Quotes from Victor Hugo

Death belongs to God alone. By what right do men touch that unknown thing?

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

The bureau is closed, said Gavroche. I'm receiving no more complaints.

For dogs we kings should have lions, and for cats, tigers. The great benefits a crown.

a compliment is like a kiss through a veil.

What a grand thing it is to be loved! What a far grander thing it is to love! The heart becomes heroic, by dint of passion.

What is called honors and dignities, and even honor and dignity, is generally fool's gold.

He said, moreover, Teach those who are ignorant as many things as possible; society is culpable, in that it does not afford instruction gratis; it is responsible for the night which it produces. This soul is full of shadow; sin is therein committed. The guilty one is not the person who has committed the sin, but the person who has created the shadow. It will be perceived that he had a peculiar manner of his own of judging things: I suspect that he obtained it from the Gospel.

Where women are honored, the divinities are pleased. Where they are despised, it is useless to pray to God.

Idleness, pleasure, what abysses! To do nothing is a dreary course to take, be sure of it. To live idle upon the substance of society! To be useless, that is to say, noxious! This leads straight to the lowest depth of misery.

Nisi Dominus custodierit domum, in vanum vigilant qui custodiunt eam, Unless the Lord guard the house, in vain do they watch who guard it.

She was a lovely blonde, with fine teeth. She had gold and pearls for her dowry; but her gold was on her head, and her pearls were in her mouth.

Teach the ignorant as much as you can; society is culpable in not providing instruction for all and it must answer for the night with it produces. If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness. (Bishop of D)

The hatred of luxury is not an intelligent hatred. It implies a hatred of arts.

Marius and Cosette did not ask where this would lead them. They looked at themselves as arrived. It is a strange pretension for men to ask that love should lead them somewhere.

He was fine; he, that orphan that foundling that outcast; he felt himself august and strong; he looked full in the face that society from which he was banished, and into which he had so powerfully intervened; that human justice from which he had snatched its prey; all those tigers whose jaws perforce remained empty; those myrmidons, those judges, those executioners, all that royal power which he, poor, insignificant being, had foiled with the power of God.

Civil war.... What did the words mean? Was there any such thing as foreign war? Was not all warfare between men warfare between brothers?

Gauvin reprit : -Et la femme? qu'en faites-vous? Cimourdain répondit: -Ce qu'elle est. La servante de l'homme. -Oui. À une condition. -Laquelle? -C'est que l'homme sera le serviteur de la femme. -Y penses-tu? s'écria Cimourdain, l'homme serviteur! Jamais. L'homme est maître . Je n'admet qu'une royauté, celle du foyer. L'homme chez lui est roi. -Oui. À une condition. -Laquelle? -C'est que la femme y sera reine.

In every village there is a candle, the teacher; and an extinguisher, the clergy.

He had to accept the fate of every newcomer to a small town where there are plenty of tongues that gossip and few minds that think.

Often when we think we are knotting one thread, we are tying quite another.

Is it not when the fall is the lowest that charity ought to be the greatest?

My greatness does not extend to this shelf.

But I have been exposed, I am pursued - by myself! That is a pursuit that does not readily let go.