Quotes from Victor Hugo

Nothing could be so poignant and so terrible as this face, wherein was displayed all that may be designated as the evil of the good.

Certainly she was wonderfully beautiful. All that could be said of her that was in any sense critical was that there seemed to be a contradiction between the look in her eyes, which tended to melancholy, and the brightness of her smile. This had a somewhat disconcerting effect, so that at moments her charming face was puzzling without ceasing to be delightful.

Alas! What does death do with our soul? What nature does it give it? What does it take, and what does it leave with it? Where does it put it? Will it sometimes lend it eyes of flesh with which to look down upon the earth and weep?

It is the property of grief to cause the childish side of man to reappear.

Tout homme peut avoir dans sa destinée une fin du monde pour lui seul. Cela s'appelle le désespoir. L'âme est pleine d'étoiles tombantes.

She is resigned, with that resignation resembling indifference as death resembles sleep.

these cause the ideas of renunciation and solitude to germinate in him? Was he, in the midst

This is the shade of difference: the door of physicianshould never be shut, the door of the priest should always be open.

With certain kinds of people,we allow for the potential development of all the beauties of human virtue within a faith that is different from our own

People who are overwhelmed with troubles never do look back. They know only too well that misfortune follows in their wake.

As long as he has for refrain nothing but la Carmagnole, he only overthrows Louis XVI.; make him sing the Marseillaise, and he will free the world.

Revolution is the accession of the peoples, and, at the bottom, the People is Man.

The realities of the soul are none the less realities because they are not visible and palpable.

He always took his meals alone, with an open book before him, which he read. He had a well-selected little library. He loved books; books are cold but safe friends. In

Romanticism, so often ill-defined, is only ... liberalism in literature.

Los grandes acontecimientos tienen consecuencias incalculables

I shall die while he sleeps. The two slumbers may be good neighbors. The

He who has not been a determined accuser during prosperity should hold his peace in adversity.

He did not understand how men could busy themselves with hating each other because of silly stuff like the charter, democracy, legitimacy, monarchy, the republic, etc., when there were in the world all sorts of mosses, grasses, and shrubs which they might be looking at, and

As we have just observed, nothing trains children to silence like unhappiness.

She flourishes and grows green amid ruins; she has ivy for the stones and love for man.

All generous social irradiations spring from science, letters, arts, education. Make men, make men. Give them light that they may warm you. Sooner or later the splendid question of universal education will present itself with the irresistible authority of the absolute truth; and

Let that vile sand which you trample under foot be cast into the furnace, let it melt and seethe there, it will become a splendid crystal, and it is thanks to it that Galileo and Newton will discover stars.

The sores of the human race, those great sores which cover the globe, do not halt at the red or blue lines traced upon the map.