Victor Hugo quotes
Victor Hugo (1802–1885): French novelist, poet, dramatist and politician. The library holds 51 quotes by Victor Hugo, drawn from Les Misérables, To His Orphan Grandchildren, The Vanished City. The 51 below are the most quoted; search the library in the maker for the rest.
Often about: life, faith, love, time, youth, nature
The best-known Victor Hugo quotes
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The supreme happiness of life consists in the conviction that one is loved; loved for one’s own sake—let us say rather, loved in spite of one’s self.
Les Misérables · translated by Isabel F. Hapgood -
Our acts make or mar us,—we are the children of our own deeds.
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He is the best gentleman that is the son of his own deserts, and not the degenerated heir of another’s virtue.
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As the purse is emptied the heart is filled.
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A soul only needs to see a smile in a white crape bonnet in order to enter the palace of dreams.
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It is from books that wise men derive consolation in the troubles of life.
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The first symptom of true love in a young man is timidity, in a girl it is boldness. The two sexes have a tendency to approach, and each assumes the qualities of the other.
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Sometimes these ambassadors of heaven, the accursed elect of the wrath of heaven, appear in the world as though they came from hell.
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Reverie, which is thought in its nebulous state, borders closely upon the land of sleep, by which it is bordered as by a natural frontier.
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The sword is but a hideous flash in the darkness; right is an eternal ray.
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I like the laughter that opens the lips and the heart, that shower at the same time pearls and the soul.
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Great edifices, like great mountains, are the work of ages.
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Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age.
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The sublimest canticle to be heard on earth is the stammering of the human soul on the lips of infancy.
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The nearer I approach the end, the plainer I hear around me the immortal symphonies which invite me.
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Be as the bird perched for an instant on the too frail branch which she feels bending beneath, but sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.
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Men no longer wholly believe; in this age of blindness and scientific pride, no one is any longer seen bowing before his god on both his knees.
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Oh vanished times! splendors eclipsed for aye! Oh suns behind the horizon that have set.
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Alas! what does man here below? A little noise in much obscurity.
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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.
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Society is a republic. When an individual endeavours to lift himself above his fellows, he is dragged down by the mass, either by ridicule or calumny.
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Above the cloud with its shadow is the star with its light.
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Let us fear the worst, but work with faith; the best will always take care of itself.
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Hope is a delusion; no hand can grasp a wave or a shadow.
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God created the coquette as soon as he had made the fool.
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Every body drags its shadow, and every mind its doubt.
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Love has no middle term; it either saves or destroys.
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Oh, the love of a mother, love no one forgets; miraculous bread which God distributes and multiplies; board always spread by the paternal hearth, whereat each has his portion, and all have it entire!
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You’ll see that, since our fate is ruled by chance, Each man, unknowing, great, Should frame life so that at some future hour Fact and his dreamings meet.
To His Orphan Grandchildren -
Curiosity is one of the forms of feminine bravery.
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Slaves would be tyrants if the chance were theirs.
The Vanished City -
Alas, how many young girls have I seen die of that!
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People do not lack strength; they lack will.
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Life is a flower of which love is the honey.
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A fixed idea ends in madness or heroism.
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Every idea must have a visible unfolding.
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Revolution is the larva of civilization.
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O youth! thou often tearest thy wings against the thorns of voluptuousness.
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Melancholy is the pleasure of being sad.
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Caution is the eldest child of wisdom.
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Danger for danger’s sake is senseless.
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We are the children of our own deeds.
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I pass by them, and better than they.
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The child’s murmuring is more and is less than words; there are no notes, and yet it is a song; there are no syllables, and yet it is language… This poor stammering is a compound of what the child said when it was an angel, and of what it will say when it becomes a man.
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Popularity is glory in penny-pieces.
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Press on! a better fate awaits thee.
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Progress—the stride of God.
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One must have pity on the dead.
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Emotion is always new.
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Foppery is the egotism of clothes.
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Toleration is the best religion.
Where these quotes come from
- Les Misérables (1 quote)
- To His Orphan Grandchildren (1 quote)
- The Vanished City (1 quote)
Every quote comes from a public-domain edition. How the library was made .