Top 990 Quotes & Sayings by Victor Hugo - Page 13

...Though we chisel away as best we can at the mysterious block from which our life is made, the black vein of destiny continually reappears.

Here we stop. Upon the threshold of wedding nights stands an angel smiling, his finger on his lip.

Take all reasonable advantage of that which the present may offer you. It is the only time which is ours. Yesterday is buried forever, and to-morrow we may never see.

The earlier works of a man of genius are always preferred to the newer ones, in order to prove that he is going down instead of up.

To love or have loved is all-sufficing. We must not ask for more. No other pearl is to be found in the shadowfolds of life. To love is an accomplishment.

Table talk and Lovers' talk equally elude the grasp; Lovers' talk is clouds, table talk is smoke.

There must be people who pray even for those who never pray.

So a voice in the mountain is enough to let loose an avalanche. A word too much may be followed by a caving in. If the word had not been spoken, it would not have happened.

She was sad with an obscure sadness of which she had not the secret herself. There was in her whole person the stupor of a life ended but never commenced.

I am in the night. There is a being who has gone away and carried the heavens with her. Oh! to be laid side by side in the same tomb, hand clasped in hand, and from time to time, in the darkness, to caress a finger gently, that would suffice for my eternity.

The beautiful is as useful as the useful." He added after a moment’s silence, "Perhaps more so.

I only take a half share in the civil war; I am willing to die, I am not willing to kill.

There are no rules for felicity.

In the opera we call love, the libretto is almost nothing.

Dirt has been shrewdly termed "misplaced material.

She worked in order to live, and presently fell in love, also in order to live, for the heart, too, has its hunger.

For sight is woman-like and shuns the old.

To study in Paris is to be born in Paris!

God has bestowed two gifts on man: hope and ignorance. Ignorance is the better of the two.

At the shrine of friendship never say die, let the wine of friendship never run dry

Jean Prouvaire was timid only in repose. Once excited, he burst forth, a sort of mirth accentuated his enthusiasm, and he was at once both laughing and lyric.

[T]he small is great, the great is small; all is in equilibrium in necessity.

It is an unpleasant thing to go to bed without supper, it is a still less pleasant thing not to sup and not to know where one is to sleep.

A cannonball travels only two thousand miles an hour; light travels two hundred thousand miles a second. Such is the superiority of Jesus Christ over Napoleon.

Sometimes he used a spade in his garden, and sometimes he read and wrote. He had but one name for these two kinds of labor; he called them gardening. ‘The Spirit is a garden,’ said he

Enthusiasm is the fever of reason.

God whose gifts in gracious flood Unto all who seek are sent, Only asks you to be good And is content.

...It all seemed to him to have disappeared as if behind a curtain at a theater. There are such curtains that drop in life. God is moving on to the next act.

If you would civilize a man, begin with his grandmother.

His whole life was now summed up in two words: absolute uncertainty within an impenetrable fog.

To meditate is to labour; to think is to act.

God put in man thought; society, action; nature, revery.

A wedding is not house-keeping.

Though one believes in nothing, there are moments in life when one accepts the religion of the temple nearest at hand.

Is it not a thing divine to have a smile which, none know how, has the power to lighten the weight of that enormous chain which all the living in common drag behind them?

Dark Error's other hidden side is truth.

His universal compassion was due less to natural instinct, than to a profound conviction, a sum of thoughts that in the course of living had filtered through to his heart: for in the nature of man, as in rock, there may be channels hollowed by the dropping of water, and these can never be destroyed.

If we must suffer, let us suffer nobly.

Whom man kills, him God restoreth to life.

Can human nature ever be wholly and radically transformed? Can the man whom God made good be made wicked by man? Can the soul be reshaped in its entirety by destiny and made evil because destiny is evil? Can the heart become misshapen and afflicted with ugly, incurable deformities under disproportionate misfortune, like a spinal column bent beneath a too low roof?

Gavroche had fallen only to rise again; he sat up, a long stream of blood rolled down his face, he raised both arms in air, looked in the direction whence the shot came, and began to sing.

Joie est mon caractere, C'est la faute a Voltaire; Misere est mon trousseau C'est la faute a Rousseau. [Joy is my character, 'Tis the fault of Voltaire; Misery is my trousseau 'Tis the fault of Rousseau.] - Gavroche

What matters deafness of the ear, when the mind hears? The one true deafness, the incurable deafness, is that of the mind.

The most excellent symbol of the people is the paving stone. One walks on it until it falls on one's head.

And do you know Monsieur Marius? I believe I was a little in love with you.

You are adorable, mademoiselle. I study your feet with the microscope and your soul with the telescope.

What says the law? You will not kill. How does it say it? By killing!

There are, as we know, powerful and illustrious atheists. At bottom, led back to the truth by their very force, they are not absolutely sure that they are atheists; it is with them only a question of definition, and in any case, if they do not believe in God, being great minds, they prove God.

There are people who observe the rules of honor as one observes the stars, from a great distance.

We do not comprehend everything, but we insult nothing.

The world of sleep has an existence of its own.

Ideas can no more flow backward than can a river.

On this point, the priest and the philosopher agree: We must die.

Now, one cannot read nonsense with impunity.

Nature, like a kind and smiling mother, lends herself to our dreams and cherishes our fancies.

You say, "Where goest Thou?" I cannot tell, And still go on. But if the way be straight I cannot go amiss: before me lies Dawn and the day: the night behind me: that Suffices me: I break the bounds: I see, And nothing more; believe and nothing less. My future is not one of my concerns.

Emotion is always new.

Good actions are the invisible hinges on the doors of heaven.

Gutenberg's invention of printing is the greatest event-the mother of revolution

Not ill? No truly, I am young, healthful, and strong; the blood flows freely in my veins; my limbs obey my will; I am robust in mind and body, constituted for a long life. Yes, all this is true; and yet, nevertheless, I have an illness, a fatal illness,-an illness given by the hand of man!