Victor Hugo Quotes - Page 27

• Nothing can be more depressing than to expose, naked to the light of thought, the hideous growth of argot. Indeed it is like a sort of repellent animal intended to dwell in darkness which has been dragged out of its cloaca. One seems to see a horned and living creature viciously struggling to be restored to the place where it belongs. One word is like a claw, another like a sightless and bleeding eye; and there are phrases which clutch like the pincers of a crab. And all of it is alive with the hideous vitality of things that have organized themselves amid disorganization.

  Victor Hugo

  Depressing, Struggle, Eye

  Victor Hugo (1980). “Les misérables”, Viking Pr

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• The most ferocious animals are disarmed by caresses to their young.

  Victor Hugo

  Animal, Parent, Young

  Victor Hugo (1862). “Les Misérables: Fantine”, p.89, Library of Alexandria

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• Need is a low door which, when we must by stern necessity pass through, forces the greatest to bend down the most.

  Victor Hugo

  Doors, Needs, Lows

  Victor Hugo (1901). “Dramatic works: profusely illus. with wood engraving”

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• Tobacco is the plant that converts thoughts into dreams.

  Victor Hugo

  Dream, Plant, Tobacco

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• Let the one fight for his flag, and the other for his ideal, and let them both imagine that they are fighting for the country; the strife will be colossal.

  Victor Hugo

  Country, Fighting, Flags

  Victor Hugo (2000). “Les Mis??rables”, p.1077, Modern Library

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• The women laughed and wept; the crowd stamped their feet enthusiastically, for at that moment Quasimodo was really beautiful. He was handsome — this orphan, this foundling, this outcast.

  Victor Hugo

  Beautiful, Feet, Crowds

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• Kings are for nations in their swaddling-clothes: France has attained her majority.

  Victor Hugo

  Kings, Clothes, Majority

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• Homer is one of the men of genius who solve that fine problem of art - the finest of all, perhaps - truly to depict humanity by the enlargement of man: that is, to generate the real in the ideal.

  Victor Hugo

  Art, Real, Men

  Victor Hugo (2001). “William Shakespeare”, p.43, The Minerva Group, Inc.

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• No matter who you are, the thought of so much suffering and degradation must cause you to shudder at the sight of a veil or cassock, those two shrouds of human invention.

  Victor Hugo

  Sight, Two, Suffering

  Victor Hugo (1980). “Les misérables”, Viking Pr

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• Liberation is not deliverance.

  Victor Hugo

  Wisdom, Freedom, Liberty

  Victor Hugo (2016). “Les Misérables”, p.121, My Ebook Publishing House

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• Strong and rare natures are thus created; misery, almost always a stepmother, is sometimes a mother; privation gives birth to power of soul and mind; distress is the nurse of self-respect; misfortune is a good breast for great souls.

  Victor Hugo

  Mother, Strong, Self

  Victor Hugo (1862). “Marius”, p.68

  7 Copy quote

• I had a dream my life would be different from this hell I am living, so different from what it seemed. Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

  Victor Hugo

  Life, Dream, Different

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• I like the laughter that opens the lips and the heart, shows at the same time the pearls and the soul.

  Victor Hugo

  Laughter, Heart, Soul

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• The Parisian is to the French what the Athenian was to the Greeks: no one sleeps better than he, no one is more openly frivolous and idle, no one appears more heedless. But this is misleading. He is given to every kind of listlessness, but when there is glory to be won he may be inspired with every kind of fury. Give him a pike and he will enact the tenth of August, a musket and you have Austerlitz. He was the springboard of Napoleon and the mainstay of Danton. At the cry of "la patrie" he enrols, and at the call of liberty he tears up the pavements. Beware of him!

  Victor Hugo

  Sleep, August, Paris

  Victor Hugo (1980). “Les misérables”, Viking Pr

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• One cannot be a good historian of the outward, visible world without giving some thought to the hidden, private life of ordinary people; and on the other hand one cannot be a good historian of this inner life without taking into account outward events where these are relevant.

  Victor Hugo

  Hands, Order, Two

  "Les misérables".

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• Nothing is more dangerous than to stop working. It is a habit that can soon be lost, one that is easily neglected and hard to resume. A measure of day-dreaming is a good thing, like a drug prudently used ... But too much submerges and drowns. Woe to the intellectual worker who allows himself to lapse wholly from positive thinking into day-dreaming. He thinks he can easily change back, and tells himself that it is all one. He is wrong! To substitute day-dreaming for thought is to confuse poison with a source of nourishment.

  Victor Hugo

  Dream, Positive Thinking, Lost Ones

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• Yes, instruction! Light! Light! Everything comes from light, and to everything it returns.

  Victor Hugo

  Light, Return, Instruction

  Victor Hugo (2016). “Les Miserables”, p.1493, Xist Publishing

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• If the infinite had no me, then me would be its limit. It would not be the infinite, therefore it would not be.

  Victor Hugo

  Limits, Would Be, Infinite

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• To be perfectly happy it does not suffice to possess happiness, it is necessary to have deserved it.

  Victor Hugo

  Wisdom, Doe

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• Equality does not mean that all plants must grow to the same height - a society of tall grass and dwarf trees, a jostle of conflicting jealousies. It means, in civic terms, an equal outlet for all talents; in political terms, that all votes will carry the same weight; and in religious terms that all beliefs will enjoy equal rights.

  Victor Hugo

  Religious, Mean, Dwarves

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• The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.

  Victor Hugo

  Darkness, Guilt, Les Mis

  Victor Hugo (1862). “Les Misérables: Fantine”, p.14, Library of Alexandria

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• Music is the vapor of art. It is to poetry what reverie is to thought, what fluid is to solid, what the ocean of clouds is to the ocean of waves.

  Victor Hugo

  Music, Art, Ocean

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• We may remark in passing that to be blind and beloved may, in this world where nothing is perfect, be among the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness. The supreme happiness in life is the assurance of being loved; of being loved for oneself, even in spite of oneself; and this assurance the blind man possesses. In his affliction, to be served is to be caressed. Does he lack anything? no. Possessing love he is not deprived of light. A love, moreover, that is wholly pure. There can be no blindness where there is this certainty.

  Victor Hugo

  Life, Men, Light

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• Every good quality runs into a defect; economy borders on avarice, the generous are not far from the prodigal, the brave man is close to the bully; he who is very pious is slightly sanctimonious; there are just as many vices to virtue as there are holes in the mantle of Diogenes.

  Victor Hugo

  Running, Men, Bully

  Victor Hugo (2000). “Les Mis??rables”, p.577, Modern Library

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• Justice has its anger, my lord Bishop, and the wrath of justice is an element of progress. Whatever else may be said of it, the French Revolution was the greatest step forward by mankind since the coming of Christ. It was unfinished, I agree, but still it was sublime. It released the untapped springs of society; it softened hearts, appeased, tranquilized, enlightened, and set flowing through the world the tides of civilization. It was good. The French Revolution was the anointing of humanity.

  Victor Hugo

  Spring, Heart, Civilization

  Victor Hugo (1980). “Les misérables”, Viking Pr

  65 Copy quote

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