Quotes from Victor Hugo

The poacher works in the woods, and the smuggler in the mountains or on the sea. The towns make men ferocious because it makes them corrupt. Mountains, sea, and forest make men reckless. They stir the wildness of men's nature, but do not necessarily destroy what is human

It is one of the poignant anxieties of the thinker that he sees the shadow resting on the human soul, and that he gropes in darkness without being able to awaken that slumbering Progress.

VOLUME II.—COSETTE

diocese. True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do.

All the nuns in the world are not worth as much as one mother in the formation of a young girl's soul.

The devotion of one man had given strength and courage to all.

To be wicked does not insure prosperity.

Et puis, tenez, monsieur Marius, je crois que j'étais un peu amoureuse de vous.

To confide is sometime to deliver into a person's power

We live in a squalid society. Success: this is the message seeping, drop by drop, down from the overriding corruption.

That great little soul had taken flight.

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

Man is the second.

Injustice had made her sulle, and misery had made her ugly.

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. During this journey in 1825

This very slight change had worked a revolution.

Si se quiere ser feliz, señor, no se puede tener sentido del deber; pues, si uno lo tiene, el deber es implacable. Se diría que nos castiga por querer cumplir con él; pero, no, más bien nos recompensa, pues nos precipita en un infierno en el que nos sentimos cerca de Dios. Apenas nos hemos desgarrado las entrañas, nos hallamos en paz con nosotros mismos.

Let us never fear robbers nor murderers. Those are dangers from without, petty dangers. Let us fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices are the real murderers. The great dangers lie within ourselves.

Jean Valjean disconcerted him. All the axioms which had served him as points of support all his life long, had crumbled away in the presence of this man. Jean Valjean's generosity towards him, Javert, crushed him.

When many varied sensations have agitated the day, when various matters preoccupy the mind, one falls asleep once, but not a second time.

A priest and a philosopher are two different things

Superstitions, bigotries, affected devotion, prejudices, those forms all forms as they are, are tenacious of life; they have teeth and nails in their smoke, and they must be clasped close, body to body, and war must be made on them, and that without truce; for it is one of the fatalities of humanity to be condemned to eternal combat with phantoms. It is difficult to seize darkness by the throat, and to hurl it to the earth.

O, dragostea! spuse ea, È™i glasul îi tremur?, iar ochii îi str?lucir?. Dragostea înseamn? s? fii doi È™i s? nu fii decât unul. Un b?rbat È™i o femeie care se contopesc într-un înger. Dragostea e cerul.

I am not enthusiastic over your Jesus, who preaches renunciation and sacrifice to the last extremity. 'Tis the counsel of an avaricious man to beggars. Renunciation; why? Sacrifice; to what end? I do not see one wolf immolating himself for the happiness of another wolf. Let us stick to nature, then.