Selected Victor Hugo Quotes
Victor Hugo- Victor-Marie Hugo (February 26, 1802 – May 22, 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. His literary career spanned for more than 60 years. He wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the greatest French writers of all time.
His most famous works are the novels "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame" (1831) and "Les Misérables" (1862). He is also renowned in France for his poetry collections, such as "Les Contemplations" (The Contemplations) and "La Légende des siècles" (The Legend of the Ages). He was also at the forefront of the Romantic literary movement with his play "Cromwell" and drama "Hernani". Many of his works have inspired music, both during his lifetime and after his death, including the opera "Rigoletto" and the musicals "Les Misérables" and "Notre-Dame de Paris". He produced more than 4,000 drawings in his lifetime.
As a politician, he campaigned for social causes such as the abolition of capital punishment. Though he was a committed royalist when he was still young, his views changed as decades passed. He became a passionate supporter of republicanism, serving in politics as both deputy and senator. His work touched upon most of the political and social issues and the artistic trends of his time. His opposition to absolutism and his literary stature established him as a national hero.
When he died, he was given a state funeral in the Panthéon of Paris, an honor that just a few French people get. It was also attended by over 2 million people, the largest in French history. A number of streets in Paris were named after him. Many songs and movies were based on his books, and his statue made, but above all, a Parisian museum known as Maison de Victor Hugo (House of Victor Hugo in English) was created to remember all his work.
Selected Victor Hugo Quotes:
“Taste is the common sense of genius.”
Victor Hugo, Intelligence/Wisdom
“The wise man does not grow old, but ripens.”
Victor Hugo, Intelligence/Wisdom
“I think, therefore I doubt.”
Victor Hugo, Intelligence/Wisdom
“He who opens a school door, closes a prison.”
Victor Hugo, Intelligence/Wisdom
“Common sense is in spite of, not the result of, education.”
Victor Hugo, Intelligence/Wisdom
“It is not enough to be happy, one must be content.”
Victor Hugo, Happiness
“It is a charming quality of the happiness we inspire in others that, far from being diminished like a reflection, it comes back to us enhanced.”
Victor Hugo, Happiness
“Laughter is sunshine, it chases winter from the human face.”
Victor Hugo, Happiness
“If you are stone, be magnetic; if a plant, be sensitive; but if you are human be love.”
Victor Hugo, Goals
“When a woman is talking to you, listen to what she says with her eyes.”
Victor Hugo, Goals
“Let us sacrifice one day to gain perhaps a whole life.”
Victor Hugo, Goals
“Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.”
Victor Hugo, Goals
“There is nothing like a dream to create the future.”
Victor Hugo, Goals
“Not being heard is no reason for silence.”
Victor Hugo, Goals
“Breathe, hope.”
Victor Hugo, Goals
“Nothing is more imminent than the impossible . . . what we must always foresee is the unforeseen.”
Victor Hugo, Goals
“To put everything in balance is good, to put everything in harmony is better.”
Victor Hugo, Goals
“Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.”
Victor Hugo, Goals
“When you get an idea into your head you find it in everything.”
Victor Hugo, Goals
“Nothing makes a man so adventurous as an empty pocket.”
Victor Hugo, Goals
“Be happy without picking flaws.”
Victor Hugo, Goals, Happiness
“As with stomachs, we should pity minds that do not eat.”
Victor Hugo, Goals, Intelligence/Wisdom
“Almost all our desires, when examined, contain something too shameful to reveal.”
Victor Hugo, Life
“Pain is as diverse as man. One suffers as one can.”
Victor Hugo, Life
“I’m not totally useless. I can be used as a bad example.”
Victor Hugo, Life
“People weighed down with troubles do not look back; they know only too well that misfortune stalks them.”
Victor Hugo, Life
“When a man is out of sight, it is not too long before he is out of mind.”
Victor Hugo, Life
“A smile is the same as sunshine; it banishes winter from the human countenance.”
Victor Hugo, Life
“The earth is a great piece of stupidity.”
Victor Hugo, Life
“Man lives by affirmation even more than he does by bread.”
Victor Hugo, Life
“There is something more terrible than a hell of suffering–a hell of boredom.”
Victor Hugo, Life
“Every blade has two edges; he who wounds with one wounds himself with the other.”
Victor Hugo, Life
“To contemplate is to look at shadows.”
Victor Hugo, Life
“What matters deafness of the ear, when the mind hears? The one true deafness, the incurable deafness, is that of the mind.”
Victor Hugo, Life
“If you wish to understand what Revolution is, call it Progress; and if you wish to understand what Progress is, call it Tomorrow.”
Victor Hugo, Life
“People do not lack strength, they lack will.”
Victor Hugo, Life
“If I speak, I am condemned. If I stay silent, I am damned!”
Victor Hugo, Life
“He who does not weep does not see.”
Victor Hugo, Life
“The future has several names. For the weak, it is impossible; for the fainthearted, it is unknown; but for the valiant, it is ideal.”
Victor Hugo, Life
“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.”
Victor Hugo, Life
“Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars.”
Victor Hugo, Life
“Habit is the nursery of errors.”
Victor Hugo, Life
“Our acts make or mar us, we are the children of our own deeds.”
Victor Hugo, Life
“The realities of life do not allow themselves to be forgotten.”
Victor Hugo, Life
“Those who live are those who fight.”
Victor Hugo, Life
“What is said about men often has as much influence upon their lives, and especially upon their destinies, as what they do.”
Victor Hugo, Life
“Life is a theatre set in which there are but few practicable entrances.”
Victor Hugo, Life
“A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labor and there is invisible labor.”
Victor Hugo, Life
“One drop of wine is enough to redden a whole glass of water.”
Victor Hugo, Life
“To die is nothing; but it is terrible not to live.”
Victor Hugo, Life, Death
“Doing nothing is happiness for children and misery for old men.”
Victor Hugo, Life, Happiness
“Every day has its great grief or its small anxiety. … One cloud is dispelled, another forms. There is hardly one day in a hundred of real joy and bright sunshine.”
Victor Hugo, Life, Happiness
“Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet.”
Victor Hugo, Life, Goals
“Let us fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices are the real murderers. The great dangers lie within ourselves.”
Victor Hugo, Life, Goals
“Short as life is, we make it still shorter by the careless waste of time.”
Victor Hugo, Life, Time
“He who every morning plans the transactions of that day and follows that plan carries a thread that will guide him through the labyrinth of the most busy life.”
Victor Hugo, Life, Planning
“There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.”
Victor Hugo, Society
“Love is like a tree: it grows by itself, roots itself deeply in our being and continues to flourish over a heart in ruin. The inexplicable fact is that the blinder it is, the more tenacious it is. It is never stronger than when it is completely unreasonable.”
Victor Hugo, Love
“Mothers are often fondest of the child which has caused them the greatest pain.”
Victor Hugo, Love
“To love is to act.”
Victor Hugo, Love, Goals
“Love each other dearly always. There is scarcely anything else in the world but that: to love one another.”
Victor Hugo, Love, Goals
“To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.”
Victor Hugo, Love, Goals
“If you know what my love for you is! It is fire; it is molten lead; it is a thousand daggers in my heart.”
Victor Hugo, Love, Goals
“I have been loving you a little more every minute since this morning.”
Victor Hugo, Love, Goals
“What a grand thing, to be loved! What a grander thing still, to love!”
Victor Hugo, Love, Goals
“Life is the flower for which love is the honey.”
Victor Hugo, Love, Life
“The supreme happiness in life is the assurance of being loved; of being loved for oneself, even in spite of oneself.”
Victor Hugo, Love, Life, Happiness
“The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved — loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.”
Victor Hugo, Love, Life, Happiness
“He reached for his pocket, and found there, only reality.”
Victor Hugo, Wealth
“Being good is easy, what is difficult is being just.”
Victor Hugo, Kindness, Justice
“Another story must begin!”
Victor Hugo, Art
“No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.”
Victor Hugo, Ideas, Strength
“Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”
Victor Hugo, Ideas, Power
“Initiative is doing the right thing without being told.”
Victor Hugo, Management
“To rise from error to truth is rare and beautiful.”
Victor Hugo, Truth
“It is not easy to keep silent when silence is a lie.”
Victor Hugo, Truth
“To lie a little is not possible: he who lies, lies the whole lie.”
Victor Hugo, Truth
“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.”
Victor Hugo, Music
“Dear God! how beauty varies in nature and art. In a woman the flesh must be like marble; in a statue the marble must be like flesh.”
Victor Hugo, Art, Nature
“To err is human. To loaf is Parisian.” (This is also one of the best quotes about Paris.)
Victor Hugo, Society
“To study in Paris is to be born in Paris!”