A Quote by Victor Hugo

It may be remarked in passing that success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblences to merit.

Victor Hugo

Quote Topics

Deceived False May Men Merit Passing Success Success Is Thing Ugly

Quote Author

Victor Hugo
French - Novelist
February 26, 1802 - May 22, 1885

Success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit.... They confound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud.

Victor Hugo

Success is a very hideous thing. Its false resemblance to merit deceives men.

Victor Hugo

There are two sorts of hypocrites: ones that are deceived with their outward morality and external religion; and the others are those that are deceived with false discoveries and elevation; which often cry down works, and men's own righteousness, and tlak much of free grace, but at the same time make a righteousness of their discoveries and of their humiliation, and exalt themselves to heaven with them.

Jonathan Edwards

Our citizens may be deceived for awhile, and have been deceived; but as long as the presses can be protected, we may trust to them for light.

Thomas Jefferson

It has been remarked that almost every character which has excited either attention or pity has owed part of its success to merit, and part to a happy concurrence of circumstances in its favor. Had Caesar or Cromwell exchanged countries, the one might have been a sergeant and the other an exciseman.

Oliver Goldsmith

I think, in history, we often see a false representation of women. The men are always the successors and, supposedly, of their own merit, which I don't believe to be to true.

Jodie Comer

Real merit requires as much labor, to be placed in a true light, as humbug to be elevated to an unworthy eminence; only the success of the false is temporary, that of the true, immortal.

Francis Alexander Durivage

Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Children are not deceived by fairy-tales; they are often and gravely deceived by school-stories. Adults are not deceived by science-fiction ; they can be deceived by the stories in the women's magazines.

C. S. Lewis

The success of one film may convince the filmmaker to try repeat his successes and get into a competition with himself. One cannot dwell on periodic successes. You have to look at it as a temporary, passing thing.

Asghar Farhadi

Beautiful roads do not always lead to beautiful places! Heaven may be hidden at the end of an ugly road! Do not be deceived by the beginning; try to see the end!

Mehmet Murat Ildan

The impression forces itself upon one that men measure by false standards, that everyone seeks power, success, riches for himself, and admires others who attain them, while undervaluing the truly precious thing in life.

Sigmund Freud

Yes, it is the precepts of men versus the revealed word of God. The more we follow the word of God the less we are deceived, while those who follow the wisdom of men are deceived the most.

Ezra Taft Benson

I said to them last week that I'd like them to win ugly and they certainly won ugly today. That was the ugliest thing I've seen since the ugly sisters fell out of the ugly tree.

Terry Butcher

Life is not a beauty contest, some [ugly people] are great. What I hate is nasty, ugly people... the worst is ugly, short men. Women can be short, but for men it is impossible. It is something that they will not forgive in life... they are mean and they want to kill you.