Quotes from Victor Hugo

In democratic states, the only governments founded on justice, it sometimes happens that a faction usurps power; then the whole rises up, and the necessary vindication of its right may go so far as armed conflict.

Qué pasa con las almas de esos seres que acaban de dejar el seno de Dios cuando se encuentran así desde que nacen pequeñas y desnudas entre los hombres?

Todavía perdura este patio la tormenta del combate; es visible el espanto; las convulsiones de la refriega se han quedado petrificadas en ese lugar; los seres están vivos, y luego muertos; fue ayer. Las paredes agonizan, las piedras se caen, las brechas vocean; los agujeros son llagas; los árboles inclinados y estremecidos parecen esforzarse por escapar.

From his very first steps among men, he had felt himself, later on he had seen himself, spewed out, blasted, rejected. Human words were, for him, always a raillery or a malediction. As he grew up, he had found nothing but hatred around him. He had caught the general malevolence. He had picked up the weapon with which he had been wounded.

architecture is dead, with no ghost to return, killed by the printed book because it did not last as long and cost more.

There was a coffin containing a body in the Petit-Picpus, and a coffin without a body in the Vaugirard cemetery, public order had no doubt been deeply disturbed thereby, but no one was aware of it.

Saint Augustine: 'Place your expectations in Him to whom there is no succession!

Destiny, with its mysterious and fatal patience, was slowly bringing these two beings near each other, fully charged and all languishing with the stormy electricities of passion.

The incubation of insurrections gives the retort to the premeditation of coups d'etat.

Amare o aver amato basta: non chiedete nulla in seguito, perché non si possono trovare altre perle fra le pieghe tenebrose della vita.

Mes amis! qui de vous, qui de nous n'a souvent, Quand le deuil à l'oeil sec, au visage rêvant, Cet ami sérieux qui blesse et qu'on révère, Avait sur notre front posé sa main sévère, Qui de nous n'a cherché le calme dans un chant!

Toutes les conquêtes sublimes sont plus ou moins des prix de hardiesse. Pour que la révolution soit, il ne suffit pas que Montesquieu la pressente, que Diderot la prêche, que Beaumarchais l'annonce, que Condorcet la calcule, qu'Arouet la prépare, que Rousseau la prémédite ; il faut que Danton l'ose.

When adversity entered his room, he bowed to his old acquaintance cordially; he tickled catastrophe in the ribs.

Ils tombèrent dans cette redoutable erreur de prendre l'obéissance du soldat pour le consentement de la nation. Cette confiance-là perd des trônes.

Through a religion you see the solar spectre of God, but not God.

Cometer la menor cantidad de pecados posibles es la ley del hombre. No cometer ninguno es el sueño del ángel.

Loving is half of believing.

BOOK SECOND—THE FALL

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.

As the bishop was rather short of stature, he could not reach it. Madame Magloire, said he, fetch me a chair. My greatness [grandeur] does not reach as far as that shelf.

La suprema miseria porge occasione alle oscenità.

Frères, qui meurt ici meurt dans le rayonnement de l'avenir, et nous entrons dans une tombe toute pénétrée d'aurore.

She was a pretty blonde with fine teeth. For dowry, she had gold and pearls; but the gold was on her head and the pearls were in her mouth.

As cidades produzem homens ferozes, porque produzem homens corruptos.