Victor Hugo Quotes (page 2)

1802-1885, French Poet, Dramatist, Novelist
quotes
93
topics
12
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“To love another person is to see the face of God. [Les Miserables]”
Love
“There is no more sovereign eloquence than the truth in indignation.”
Eloquence
“I'd rather be hissed at for a good verse, than applauded for a bad one.”
Critics and Criticism
“Greater than the tread of mighty armies is an idea whose time has come.”
Ideas
“When a woman is speaking to you, listen to what she says with her eyes.”
Listening
“Short as life is, we make it still shorter by the careless waste of time.”
Waste
“It is from books that wise people derive consolation in the troubles of life.”
Books and Reading
“Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet.”
Planning
“For prying into any human affairs, non are equal to those whom it does not concern.”
Gossip
“To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.”
Books and Reading
“Great perils have this beauty, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers.”
Danger
“Music expresses that which can not be said and on which it is impossible to be silent”
Music
“Close by the Rights of Man, at the least set beside them, are the Rights of the Spirit.”
Human Rights
“Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the grander view?”
Potential
“When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age.”
Age and Aging
“England has two books, one which she has made and one which has made her: Shakespeare and the Bible.”
Bible
“There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.”
Ideas
“A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labor and there is invisible labor.”
Idleness
“There are fathers who do not love their children, but there is no grandfather who does not adore his grandson.”
Fathers
“Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees.”
Attitude
“The mountains, the forest, and the sea, render men savage; they develop the fierce, but yet do not destroy the human.”
Nature
“The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather in spite of ourselves.”
Love
“There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees.”
Prayer
“Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled. From that divine tear and from that human smile is derived the grace of present civilization.”
Irony
“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.”
Humankind
“The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved, loved for ourselves, or rather loved in spite of ourselves.”
Self-love
“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.”
Debt
“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.”
Animals
“Do not ask the name of the person who seeks a bed for the night. He who is reluctant to give his name is the one who most needs shelter.”
Poverty and The Poor
“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.”
Society