Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

Quotes

• There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.

• I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, his cloak was out at the elbows, the water passed through his shoes -- and the stars through his soul.

• Hope is the word which God has written on the brow of every man.

• A faith is a necessity to a man. Woe to him who believes in nothing.

• How did it happen that their lips came together? How does it happen that birds sing, that snow melts, that the rose unfolds, that the dawn whitens behind the stark shapes of trees on the quivering summit of the hill? A kiss, and all was said.

• Have no fear of robbers or murderers. They are external dangers, petty dangers. We should fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices the real murders. The great dangers are within us. Why worry about what threatens our heads or purses? Let us think instead of what threatens our souls.

• Hell is an outrage on humanity. When you tell me that your deity made you in his image, I reply that he must have been very ugly.

• Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees.

• Civil war? What does that mean? Is there any foreign war? Isn't every war fought between men, between brothers?

• Forty is the old age of youth; fifty the youth of old age.

• Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.

• Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.

• One can resist the invasion of an army but one cannot resist the invasion of ideas.

• The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved, loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.

• There are fathers who do not love their children; there is no grandfather who does not adore his grandson.

• To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.

• To love beauty is to see light.

• Toleration is the best religion.

• Try as you will, you cannot annihilate that eternal relic of the human heart, love.

• When a man is out of sight, it is not too long before he is out of mind.