212 Victor Hugo Quotes
To love is to act
Lurk germs of death
Despotism is a long crime
Stupidity talks, vanity acts
Liberation is not deliverance
Loving is half of believing
Progress: The stride of God!
Habit is the nursery of errors
Virtue has a veil, vice a mask
Wisdom is a sacred communion

Victor Hugo quotes with pictures

Toleration is the best religion
To love beauty is to see light
A library implies an act of faith
Genius: the superhuman in man
People do not lack strength, they lack will
Those who live are those who fight
Perseverance, secret of all triumphs
Caution is the eldest child of wisdom
He who opens a school door, closes a prison
Life is a flower of which love is the honey
Men become accustomed to poison by degrees
The wise man does not grow old, but ripens
To rise from error to truth is rare and beautiful
Conscience is God present in man
He who abandons the field is beaten
Inspiration and genius, one and the same
The learned man knows that he is ignorant
There is nothing like a dream to create the future
I'm religiously opposed to religion
Peace is the virtue of civilization. War is its crime
Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause
Taste is the common sense of genius
Idleness is the heaviest of all oppressions
If suffer we must, let's suffer on the heights
To die is nothing, but it is terrible not to live
Everything bows to success, even grammar
Joy's smile is much closer to tears than laughter
My tastes are aristocratic, my actions democratic
A compliment is like a kiss through a veil
To love another person is to see the face of God
A great artist is a great man in a great child
As the purse is emptied, the heart is filled
Prayer is an august avowal of ignorance
Curiosity is one of the forms of feminine bravery
No one can keep a secret better than a child
Pain is as diverse as man. One suffers as one can
The flesh is the surface of the unknown
Fashions have done more harm than revolutions
Proverty and wealth are comparative sins
The ox suffers, the cart complains
When liberty returns, I will return
Clouds: The only birds that never sleep
For sight is woman-like and shuns the old
Popularity is glory's small change
To contemplate is to look at shadows
Dark Error's other hidden side is truth
Puns are the droppings of soaring wits
A war between Europeans is a civil war
In every cradle decked with rosy wreath
To think of shadows is a serious thing
I was always a lover of soft-winged things
Like our dawn, merely a sob of light
I put a Phrygian cap on the old dictionary
Scepticism, that dry caries of the intelligence
The word is the Verb, and the Verb is God
Initiative is doing the right thing without being told
What a grand thing, to be loved! What a grander thing still, to love!
Concision in style, precision in thought, decision in life
It is by suffering that human beings become angels
Our acts make or mar us, we are the children of our own deeds
What would be ugly in a garden constitutes beauty in a mountain
Life's greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved
Common sense is in spite of, not the result of, education
Do not let it be your aim to be something, but to be someone
Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face
Many great actions are committed in small struggles
One sees qualities at a distance and defects at close range
The wicked envy and hate, it is their way of admiring
There are many lovely women, but no perfect ones
Doing nothing is happiness for children and misery for old men
The beautiful has but one type, the ugly has a thousand
To reform a man, you must begin with his grandmother
Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart
An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise
Forty is the old age of youth, fifty is the youth of old age
Our life dreams the Utopia. Our death achieves the Ideal
Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats
When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right
Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters
Thought is the labor of the intellect, reverie is its pleasure
Everything being a constant carnival, there is no carnival left
One believes others will do what he will do to himself
Those who always pray are necessary to those who never pray
Genius is a promontory jutting out into the infinite
Short as life is, we make it still shorter by the careless waste of time
He who is not capable of enduring poverty is not capable of being free
I love all men who think, even those who think otherwise than myself
The quantity of civilization is measured by the quality of imagination
Work makes a man free, and thought makes him worthy of freedom
To learn to read is to light a fire, every syllable that is spelled out is a spark
I had rather be hissed for a good verse than applauded for a bad one
The first symptom of love in a young man is timidity, in a girl boldness
It is from books that wise people derive consolation in the troubles of life
No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come
Work is the law of life, and to reject it as boredom is to submit to it as torment
When a woman is talking to you, listen to what she says with her eyes
Intelligence is the wife, imagination is the mistress, memory is the servant
Close by the Rights of Man, at the least set beside them, are the Rights of the Spirit
When a man is out of sight, it is not too long before he is out of mind
A faith is a necessity to a man. Woe to him who believes in nothing
Because one doesn't like the way things are is no reason to be unjust towards God
Men like me are impossible until the day when they become necessary
It is God who makes woman beautiful, it is the devil who makes her pretty
The soul has illusions as the bird has wings: it is supported by them
Hope is the word which God has written on the brow of every man
Evil. Mistrust those who rejoice at it even more than those who do it
By putting forward the hands of the clock you shall not advance the hour
Smallness in a great man seems smaller by its disproportion with all the rest
A mother's arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them
Great perils have this beauty, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers
It is the end. But of what? The end of France? No. The end of kings? Yes
Never laugh at those who suffer, suffer sometimes those who laugh
To think is of itself to be useful, it is always and in all cases a striving toward God
Try as you will, you cannot annihilate that eternal relic of the human heart, love
Almost all our desires, when examined, contain something too shameful to reveal
But when ill indeed, Even dismissing the doctor don't always succeed
No one knows like a woman how to say things which are at once gentle and deep
Style is the substance of the subject called unceasingly to the surface
There are no trifles in the human story, no trifling leaves on the tree
Indigestion is charged by God with enforcing morality on the stomach
Madame, bear in mind, that princes govern all things. Save the wind
Change your opinions, keep to your principles, change your leaves, keep intact your roots
The animal is ignorant of the fact that he knows. The man is aware of the fact that he is ignorant
To be perfectly happy it does not suffice to possess happiness, it is necessary to have deserved it
Where the telescope ends the microscope begins, and who can say which has the wider vision?
Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet
The ode lives upon the ideal, the epic upon the grandiose, the drama upon the real
Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent
Love is like a tree, it grows of its own accord, it puts down deep roots into our whole being
The most powerful symptom of love is a tenderness which becomes at times almost insupportable
A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and an invisible labor
When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age
Nature, like a kind and smiling mother, lends herself to our dreams and cherishes our fancies
For, to make deserts, God, who rules mankind, Begins with kings, and ends the work by wind
If a writer wrote merely for his time, I would have to break my pen and throw it away
What is history? An echo of the past in the future, a reflex from the future on the past
I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses
Sorrow is a fruit. God does not allow it to grow on a branch that is too weak to bear it
There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher
The last resort of kings, the cannonball. The last resort of the people, the paving stone
One of the hardest tasks is to extract continually from one's soul an almost inexhaustible ill will
Rhyme, that enslaved queen, that supreme charm of our poetry, that creator of our meter
Civil war? What does that mean? Is there any foreign war? Isn't every war fought between men, between brothers?
Nature has made a pebble and a female. The lapidary makes the diamond, and the lover makes the woman
It is often necessary to know how to obey a woman in order sometimes to have the right to command her
Sublime upon sublime scarcely presents a contrast, and we need a little rest from everything, even the beautiful
There are fathers who do not love their children, there is no grandfather who does not adore his grandson
Reaction: A boat which is going against the current but which does not prevent the river from flowing on
It is most pleasant to commit a just action which is disagreeable to someone whom one does not like
We see past time in a telescope and present time in a microscope. Hence the apparent enormities of the present
The man who does not know other languages, unless he is a man of genius, necessarily has deficiencies in his ideas
As a means of contrast with the sublime, the grotesque is, in our view, the richest source that nature can offer
God has set his intentions in the flowers, in the dawn, in the spring, it is his will that we should love
King of the peak and glacier, King of the cold, white scalps, He lifts his head at that close tread, The eagle of the Alps
The human soul has still greater need of the ideal than of the real. It is by the real that we exist, it is by the ideal that we live
Son, brother, father, lover, friend. There is room in the heart for all the affections, as there is room in heaven for all the stars
Where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incident, chaos will soon reign
Freedom in art, freedom in society, this is the double goal towards which all consistent and logical minds must strive
The greatest happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved. Loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves
Do you know what friendship is? It is to be brother and sister, two souls which touch without mingling, two fingers on one hand
Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings
Jesus wept, Voltaire smiled. From that divine tear and from that human smile is derived the grace of present civilization
Amnesty is as good for those who give it as for those who receive it. It has the admirable quality of bestowing mercy on both sides
When a man understands the art of seeing, he can trace the spirit of an age and the features of a king even in the knocker on a door
The little people must be sacred to the big ones, and it is from the rights of the weak that the duty of the strong is comprised
The mountains, the forest, and the sea, render men savage, they develop the fierce, but yet do not destroy the human
Love is a portion of the soul itself, and it is of the same nature as the celestial breathing of the atmosphere of paradise
Mankind is not a circle with a single center but an ellipse with two focal points of which facts are one and ideas the other
Well, for us, in history where goodness is a rare pearl, he who was good almost takes precedence over he who was great
A creditor is worse than a slave-owner, for the master owns only your person, but a creditor owns your dignity, and can command it
Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees
Whenever a man's friends begin to compliment him about looking young, he may be sure that they think he is growing old
Dear God! how beauty varies in nature and art. In a woman the flesh must be like marble, in a statue the marble must be like flesh
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
To give thanks in solitude is enough. Thanksgiving has wings and goes where it must go. Your prayer knows much more about it than you do
Society is a republic. When an individual tries to lift themselves above others, they are dragged down by the mass, either by ridicule or slander
There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky, there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul
When God desires to destroy a thing, he entrusts its destruction to the thing itself. Every bad institution of this world ends by suicide
The nearer I approach the end, the plainer I hear around me the immortal symphonies of the worlds which invite me. It is marvelous, yet simple
I am a soul. I know well that what I shall render up to the grave is not myself. That which is myself will go elsewhere. Earth, thou art not my abyss!
Architecture has recorded the great ideas of the human race. Not only every religious symbol, but every human thought has its page in that vast book
Blessed be Providence which has given to each his toy: the doll to the child, the child to the woman, the woman to the man, the man to the devil!
Religions do a useful thing: they narrow God to the limits of man. Philosophy replies by doing a necessary thing: it elevates man to the plane of God
The omnipotence of evil has never resulted in anything but fruitless efforts. Our thoughts always escape from whoever tries to smother them
Without vanity, without coquetry, without curiosity, in a word, without the fall, woman would not be woman. Much of her grace is in her frailty
The ideal and the beautiful are identical, the ideal corresponds to the idea, and beauty to form, hence idea and substance are cognate
There have been in this century only one great man and one great thing: Napoleon and liberty. For want of the great man, let us have the great thing
Strange to say, the luminous world is the invisible world, the luminous world is that which we do not see. Our eyes of flesh see only night
One sometimes says: "He killed himself because he was bored with life". One ought rather to say: "He killed himself because he was bored by lack of life"
There is no such thing as a little country. The greatness of a people is no more determined by their numbers than the greatness of a man is by his height
The brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over we realize this: that the human race has been roughly handled, but that it has advanced
Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones, and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace
The three great problems of this century, the degradation of man in the proletariat, the subjection of women through hunger, the atrophy of the child by darkness
He, who every morning plans the transactions of the day, and follows that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through a labyrinth of the most busy life
To be a saint is the exception, to be upright is the rule. Err, falter, sin, but be upright. To commit the least possible sin is the law for man. Sin is a gravitation
We say that slavery has vanished from European civilization, but this is not true. Slavery still exists, but now it applies only to women and its name is prostitution
The drama is complete poetry. The ode and the epic contain it only in germ, it contains both of them in a state of high development, and epitomizes both
I am an intelligent river which has reflected successively all the banks before which it has flowed by meditating only on the images offered by those changing shores
Nothing is so stifling as symmetry. Symmetry is boredom, the quintessence of mourning. Despair yawns. There is something more terrible than a hell of suffering, a hell of boredom

Victor Hugo sayings and pictures

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
There is a sacred horror about everything grand. It is easy to admire mediocrity and hills, but whatever is too lofty, a genius as well as a mountain, an assembly as well as a masterpiece, seen too near, is appalling
An army is a strange composite masterpiece, which strength results from an enormous sum total of utter weaknesses. Thus only can we explain a war waged by humanity against humanity in spite of humanity