Victor Hugo

Find the best quotes, maxims and aphorisms of Victor Hugo

Biography : French writer, poet and dramatist, regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and a leading figure of Romanticism. He is best known for works such as Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre‑Dame, as well as for his strong political and social engagement in favor of justice, peace, and freedom.
Born: 1802 - Died: 1885
Period:
19th century
Place of birth: France
France

France

Victor Hugo - Quotes

Our life dreams the Utopia. Our death achieves the Ideal.
Victor Hugo /

The three great problems of this century the degradation of man in the proletariat, the subjection of women through hunger, the atrophy of the child by darkness.
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problem

All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
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time

Short as life is, we make it still shorter by the careless waste of time.
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As a means of contrast with the sublime, the grotesque is, in our view, the richest source that nature can offer.
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Love is a portion of the soul itself, and it is of the same nature as the celestial breathing of the atmosphere of paradise.
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Doing nothing is happiness for children and misery for old men.
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happiness

A library implies an act of faith.
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Amnesty is as good for those who give it as for those who receive it. It has the admirable quality of bestowing mercy on both sides.
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Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.
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To think is of itself to be useful it is always and in all cases a striving toward God.
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The first symptom of love in a young man is timidity in a girl boldness.
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love

Change your opinions, keep to your principles change your leaves, keep intact your roots.
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Sorrow is a fruit. God does not make it grow on limbs too weak to bear it.
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Hope is the word which God has written on the brow of every man.
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hope

People do not lack strength they lack will.
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Nothing else in the world... not all the armies... is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
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time

Toleration is the best religion.
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We say that slavery has vanished from European civilization, but this is not true. Slavery still exists, but now it applies only to women and its name is prostitution.
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An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.
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time

When God desires to destroy a thing, he entrusts its destruction to the thing itself. Every bad institution of this world ends by suicide.
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There have been in this century only one great man and one great thing: Napoleon and liberty. For want of the great man, let us have the great thing.
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Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet.
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Nature has made a pebble and a female. The lapidary makes the diamond, and the lover makes the woman.
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Common sense is in spite of, not as the result of education.
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One is not idle because one is absorbed. There is both visible and invisible labor. To contemplate is to toil, to think is to do. The crossed arms work, the clasped hands act. The eyes upturned to Heaven are an act of creation.
Victor Hugo /

There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time as come.
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time

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.
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Freedom in art, freedom in society, this is the double goal towards which all consistent and logical minds must strive.
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To give thanks in solitude is enough. Thanksgiving has wings and goes where it must go. Your prayer knows much more about it than you do.
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