Quotes from Victor Hugo

She was sad with an obscure sadness of which she had not the secret herself. There was in her whole person the stupor of a life ended but never commenced.

Nothing is really small; whoever is open to the deep penetration of nature knows this.

[T]he small is great, the great is small; all is in equilibrium in necessity.

A smile is the same as sunshine; it banishes winter from the human countenance.

One only needs to see a smile in a white crape bonnet in order to enter the palace of dreams.

Is it not a thing divine to have a smile which, none know how, has the power to lighten the weight of that enormous chain which all the living in common drag behind them?

I had a dream my life would be different from this hell I am living, so different from what it seemed. Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

Short as life is, we make it still shorter by the careless waste of time.

What's our baggage? Only vows, Happiness, and all our care, And the flower that sweetly shows Nestling lightly in your hair.

To die is nothing; but it is terrible not to live.

Dreaming is happiness. Waiting is life.

Ma vie est une énigme dont ton nom est le mot. (My life is an enigma, of which your name is the word.)

Life is a theatre set in which there are but few practicable entrances.

Labor is life; thought is light.

There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees.

Every diminution of the liberty of the press is followed by a diminution of civilization. Wherever we see the freedom of the press interfered with, there we see the nutrition of the human family interrupted.

Death has its revelations: the great sorrows which open the heart open the mind as well; light comes to us with our grief. As for me, I have faith; I believe in a future life. How could I do otherwise? My daughter was a soul; I saw this soul. I touched it, so to speak.

Joy's smile is much closer to tears than laughter.

Freedom in art, freedom in society, this is the double goal towards which all consistent and logical minds must strive.

God put in man thought; society, action; nature, revery.

Human society, the world, and the whole of mankind is to be found in the alphabet.

Religion, Society, and Nature--these are the three struggles of man.

Let us sacrifice one day to gain perhaps a whole life.

Our life dreams the Utopia. Our death achieves the Ideal.