Victor Hugo Quotes

Powerful Victor Hugo for Daily Growth

About Victor Hugo

Victor Marie Hugo (1802-1885), the renowned French poet, author, and dramatist, was born in Besançon, France, but spent most of his formative years in Paris. A prolific writer who delved into various literary forms such as poetry, novels, and dramatic art, Hugo's mastery of language, social commentary, and rich imagination have earned him an enduring place among the greatest authors in Western literature. Influenced by his profound love for France and deep sympathy for its people, Hugo's works often reflected his political beliefs, particularly during the tumultuous years of the French Revolution and subsequent regime changes. He was a vocal critic of the ruling powers, which eventually led to exile during the reign of King Louis Philippe I. His most celebrated works include "Les Misérables" (1862), an epic novel that delves into the lives of Frenchmen struggling against societal injustice, and "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame" (1831), a captivating tale set within the walls of medieval Paris's iconic cathedral. These novels not only showcase Hugo's extraordinary storytelling abilities but also serve as powerful social criticisms of their respective eras. Hugo spent much of his later life in exile on the British Channel Island of Guernsey, where he completed some of his most significant works. Upon his return to France following Napoleon III's amnesty, Hugo was embraced as a national hero and continued writing until his death at age 90. Victor Hugo's legacy lies in his ability to create vivid, memorable characters while challenging social norms through thought-provoking narratives that continue to resonate with readers worldwide.

Interpretations of Popular Quotes

"To love another person is to see the face of God."

This quote suggests that experiencing deep, selfless love for another person is akin to recognizing the divine in them. It implies that love transcends our human connections and offers a glimpse into the infinite, spiritual realm. In other words, love allows us to perceive the sacredness, beauty, and perfection present in every human being - mirroring the image of God.

"No force on earth can separate one from his own destiny."

This quote by Victor Hugo emphasizes that no external force or circumstance can divert a person from their inherent path, purpose, or destiny in life. It suggests that our individual fate is deeply intertwined with who we are as individuals, and despite the challenges and obstacles we may encounter, we cannot be truly separated from our own unique journey or potential.

"He who opens a school door closes a prison."

This quote by Victor Hugo suggests that education is a powerful tool to liberate individuals from confinement, whether physical or intellectual. By opening a school door, one provides knowledge, which in turn allows people to think critically, expand their horizons, and ultimately break free from the limitations of ignorance and prejudice. Thus, providing access to quality education can effectively "close a prison" by transforming lives and fostering personal growth.

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom."

This quote by Victor Hugo underscores the importance of appreciation for those who positively impact our lives. He is suggesting that these individuals, like skillful gardeners, cultivate our inner selves, helping us grow emotionally and spiritually, making us happier and allowing our true essence to bloom. In other words, it's a reminder to express gratitude towards the people who bring joy and inspire personal growth in our lives.

"Life's greatest lessons are often learned at the worse times and from the worst mistakes."

Victor Hugo's quote emphasizes that adversity and mistakes can serve as valuable learning experiences in life. It suggests that tough times and errors, while challenging, have the potential to teach us crucial lessons about ourselves, others, and the world around us. By facing difficult situations and making mistakes, we can gain insight, grow, and ultimately become wiser individuals.

Forty is the old age of youth; fifty the youth of old age.

- Victor Hugo

Old Age, Fifty, Old, Age

To think is of itself to be useful; it is always and in all cases a striving toward God.

- Victor Hugo

Think, Always, Itself, Striving

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, Happiness, Loved, Spite

Common sense is in spite of, not as the result of education.

- Victor Hugo

Education, Result, Common, Spite

The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather in spite of ourselves.

- Victor Hugo

Happiness, Loved, Rather, Spite

My tastes are aristocratic, my actions democratic.

- Victor Hugo

Democratic, Aristocratic, Tastes

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.

- Victor Hugo

Give, Thanksgiving, Goes, Thanks

It is most pleasant to commit a just action which is disagreeable to someone whom one does not like.

- Victor Hugo

Someone, Most, Which, Disagreeable

The omnipotence of evil has never resulted in anything but fruitless efforts. Our thoughts always escape from whoever tries to smother them.

- Victor Hugo

Thoughts, Always, Resulted, Omnipotence

When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age.

- Victor Hugo

Age, Unspeakable, Joined, Wrinkles

Prayer is an august avowal of ignorance.

- Victor Hugo

Prayer, Ignorance, August

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.

- Victor Hugo

Music, Silent, Which, Expresses

Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled. From that divine tear and from that human smile is derived the grace of present civilization.

- Victor Hugo

Smile, Civilization, Wept, Voltaire

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.

- Victor Hugo

Society, Individual, Tries, Dragged

Civil war? What does that mean? Is there any foreign war? Isn't every war fought between men, between brothers?

- Victor Hugo

Civil War, Brothers, Does, Foreign

Intelligence is the wife, imagination is the mistress, memory is the servant.

- Victor Hugo

Intelligence, Servant, Mistress

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.

- Victor Hugo

Want, Been, Napoleon, Great Thing

The ode lives upon the ideal, the epic upon the grandiose, the drama upon the real.

- Victor Hugo

Drama, Ideal, Ode, Epic

Religions do a useful thing: they narrow God to the limits of man. Philosophy replies by doing a necessary thing: it elevates man to the plane of God.

- Victor Hugo

Doing, Plane, Useful Thing, Narrow

I would have liked to be - indeed, I should have been - a second Rembrandt.

- Victor Hugo

Been, Should, Would, Rembrandt

The wicked envy and hate; it is their way of admiring.

- Victor Hugo

Hate, Envy, Admiring, Wicked

Nations, like stars, are entitled to eclipse. All is well, provided the light returns and the eclipse does not become endless night. Dawn and resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is the same as the survival of the soul.

- Victor Hugo

Soul, Like, Entitled, Resurrection

A faith is a necessity to a man. Woe to him who believes in nothing.

- Victor Hugo

Faith, Nothing, Believes, Woe

To think of shadows is a serious thing.

- Victor Hugo

Think, Serious, Thing, Shadows

To contemplate is to look at shadows.

- Victor Hugo

Look, Contemplate, Shadows

The ox suffers, the cart complains.

- Victor Hugo

Cart, Suffers, Ox, Complains

Great perils have this beauty, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers.

- Victor Hugo

Beauty, Light, Perils, Fraternity

In the French language, there is a great gulf between prose and poetry; in English, there is hardly any difference. It is a splendid privilege of the great literary languages Greek, Latin, and French that they possess a prose. English has not this privilege. There is no prose in English.

- Victor Hugo

Greek, Prose, Languages, Latin

Life is the flower for which love is the honey.

- Victor Hugo

Love, Honey, Which, Flower

The little people must be sacred to the big ones, and it is from the rights of the weak that the duty of the strong is comprised.

- Victor Hugo

Strong, People, Big, Little People

Love is a portion of the soul itself, and it is of the same nature as the celestial breathing of the atmosphere of paradise.

- Victor Hugo

Love, Romantic, Atmosphere, Love Is

He who opens a school door, closes a prison.

- Victor Hugo

Education, School, Door, Opens

Habit is the nursery of errors.

- Victor Hugo

Wisdom, Habit, Errors, Nursery

A library implies an act of faith.

- Victor Hugo

Faith, Library, Act, Implies

Without vanity, without coquetry, without curiosity, in a word, without the fall, woman would not be woman. Much of her grace is in her frailty.

- Victor Hugo

Curiosity, Woman, Fall, Frailty

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.

- Victor Hugo

Both Sides, Give, Receive, Admirable

I am a soul. I know well that what I shall render up to the grave is not myself. That which is myself will go elsewhere. Earth, thou art not my abyss!

- Victor Hugo

Art, Grave, Which, Thou

Short as life is, we make it still shorter by the careless waste of time.

- Victor Hugo

Short, Waste, Still, Careless

There is a sacred horror about everything grand. It is easy to admire mediocrity and hills; but whatever is too lofty, a genius as well as a mountain, an assembly as well as a masterpiece, seen too near, is appalling.

- Victor Hugo

Admire, Horror, About, Hills

A society that admits misery, a humanity that admits war, seem to me an inferior society and a debased humanity; it is a higher society and a more elevated humanity at which I am aiming - a society without kings, a humanity without barriers.

- Victor Hugo

More, Which, Inferior, Elevated

Doing nothing is happiness for children and misery for old men.

- Victor Hugo

Happiness, Children, Doing, Old Men

He, who every morning plans the transactions of the day, and follows that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through a labyrinth of the most busy life.

- Victor Hugo

Morning, Will, Through, Labyrinth

Greater than the tread of mighty armies is an idea whose time has come.

- Victor Hugo

Idea, Tread, Armies, Mighty

To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.

- Victor Hugo

Learn, Read, Syllable, Spark

The first symptom of love in a young man is timidity; in a girl boldness.

- Victor Hugo

Love, Young Man, Symptom, Timidity

We see past time in a telescope and present time in a microscope. Hence the apparent enormities of the present.

- Victor Hugo

Past, See, Past Time, Apparent

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.

- Victor Hugo

Three, Through, Degradation, Proletariat

Taste is the common sense of genius.

- Victor Hugo

Genius, Common, Taste, Common Sense

What would be ugly in a garden constitutes beauty in a mountain.

- Victor Hugo

Nature, Mountain, Would, Garden

Rhyme, that enslaved queen, that supreme charm of our poetry, that creator of our meter.

- Victor Hugo

Queen, Charm, Creator, Meter

Nature has made a pebble and a female. The lapidary makes the diamond, and the lover makes the woman.

- Victor Hugo

Nature, Woman, Diamond, Pebble

The brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over we realize this: that the human race has been roughly handled, but that it has advanced.

- Victor Hugo

Race, Over, Been, Roughly

There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.

- Victor Hugo

Sky, Soul, Spectacle, Grander

What a grand thing, to be loved! What a grander thing still, to love!

- Victor Hugo

Love, Loved, Still, Grander

Strange to say, the luminous world is the invisible world; the luminous world is that which we do not see. Our eyes of flesh see only night.

- Victor Hugo

World, See, Which, Luminous

Love, in the eyes of the world, is either a carnal appetite or a vague fancy, which possession extinguishes or absence destroys. That is why it is commonly said, with a strange abuse of words, that passion does not endure.

- Victor Hugo

Love, Vague, Which, Carnal

One of the hardest tasks is to extract continually from one's soul an almost inexhaustible ill will.

- Victor Hugo

Will, Extract, Inexhaustible, Tasks

My childhood began, as everybody's childhood begins, with prejudices. Man finds prejudices beside his cradle, puts them from him a little in the course of his career, and often, alas! takes to them again in his old age.

- Victor Hugo

Career, Him, Everybody, Beside

Close by the Rights of Man, at the least set beside them, are the Rights of the Spirit.

- Victor Hugo

Rights, Set, Least, Beside

When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right.

- Victor Hugo

Revolution, Fact, Right, Dictatorship

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

Hands, Think, Visible, Crossed

Reaction - a boat which is going against the current but which does not prevent the river from flowing on.

- Victor Hugo

Current, Prevent, Which, Boat

As a means of contrast with the sublime, the grotesque is, in our view, the richest source that nature can offer.

- Victor Hugo

View, Offer, Means, Richest

Verse in itself does not constitute poetry. Verse is only an elegant vestment for a beautiful form. Poetry can express itself in prose, but it does so more perfectly under the grace and majesty of verse. It is poetry of soul that inspires noble sentiments and noble actions as well as noble writings.

- Victor Hugo

Soul, Express, Perfectly, Verse

It is from books that wise people derive consolation in the troubles of life.

- Victor Hugo

Wise, Consolation, Books, Derive

Every diminution of the liberty of the press is followed by a diminution of civilization. Wherever we see the freedom of the press interfered with, there we see the nutrition of the human family interrupted.

- Victor Hugo

Civilization, Interfered, Interrupted

An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.

- Victor Hugo

Idea, Invasion, Armies, Resisted

Sublime upon sublime scarcely presents a contrast, and we need a little rest from everything, even the beautiful.

- Victor Hugo

Beautiful, Rest, Need, Scarcely

Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet.

- Victor Hugo

Dreams, Some, Dreaming, Frame

The drama is complete poetry. The ode and the epic contain it only in germ; it contains both of them in a state of high development, and epitomizes both.

- Victor Hugo

Development, Epic, Contain, Germ

Curiosity is one of the forms of feminine bravery.

- Victor Hugo

Curiosity, Bravery, Feminine, Forms

Almost all our desires, when examined, contain something too shameful to reveal.

- Victor Hugo

Reveal, Almost All, Contain, Examined

The mountains, the forest, and the sea, render men savage; they develop the fierce, but yet do not destroy the human.

- Victor Hugo

Mountains, Men, Forest, Savage

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

Beauty, Art, Woman, Flesh

The flesh is the surface of the unknown.

- Victor Hugo

Unknown, Surface, Flesh

I am an intelligent river which has reflected successively all the banks before which it has flowed by meditating only on the images offered by those changing shores.

- Victor Hugo

Which, Images, Banks, Meditating

I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses.

- Victor Hugo

Mind, Streets, Congress, Frighten

Virtue has a veil, vice a mask.

- Victor Hugo

Beauty, Veil, Vice, Mask

Pain is as diverse as man. One suffers as one can.

- Victor Hugo

Pain, Man, Suffers, Diverse

Never laugh at those who suffer; suffer sometimes those who laugh.

- Victor Hugo

Never, Sometimes, Suffer, Laugh

To be perfectly happy it does not suffice to possess happiness, it is necessary to have deserved it.

- Victor Hugo

Necessary, Perfectly, Does, Deserved

One sometimes says: 'He killed himself because he was bored with life.' One ought rather to say: 'He killed himself because he was bored by lack of life.'

- Victor Hugo

Sometimes, Say, Rather, Bored

What Shakespeare was able to do in English he would certainly not have done in French.

- Victor Hugo

Able, Certainly, Would, French

Death has its revelations: the great sorrows which open the heart open the mind as well; light comes to us with our grief. As for me, I have faith; I believe in a future life. How could I do otherwise? My daughter was a soul; I saw this soul. I touched it, so to speak.

- Victor Hugo

Death, Touched, Revelations, Open

Well, for us, in history where goodness is a rare pearl, he who was good almost takes precedence over he who was great.

- Victor Hugo

History, Over, Almost, Precedence

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.

- Victor Hugo

Person, Only, Than, Owns

The last resort of kings, the cannonball. The last resort of the people, the paving stone.

- Victor Hugo

Kings, Last, Paving, Stone

Evil. Mistrust those who rejoice at it even more than those who do it.

- Victor Hugo

More, Mistrust, Even, Rejoice

The learned man knows that he is ignorant.

- Victor Hugo

Man, Ignorant, Learned, Learned Man

What is history? An echo of the past in the future; a reflex from the future on the past.

- Victor Hugo

Future, Past, Echo, Reflex

It is often necessary to know how to obey a woman in order sometimes to have the right to command her.

- Victor Hugo

Woman, How, Necessary, Order

Hope is the word which God has written on the brow of every man.

- Victor Hugo

Hope, Which, Every Man, Brow

Puns are the droppings of soaring wits.

- Victor Hugo

Puns, Wits, Soaring

How did it happen that their lips came together? How does it happen that birds sing, that snow melts, that the rose unfolds, that the dawn whitens behind the stark shapes of trees on the quivering summit of the hill? A kiss, and all was said.

- Victor Hugo

Behind, Valentine's Day, Together

Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees.

- Victor Hugo

Soul, Thoughts, Moments, Prayers

There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees.

- Victor Hugo

Thoughts, Moments, Which, Prayers

Everything being a constant carnival, there is no carnival left.

- Victor Hugo

Left, Constant, Being, Carnival

Indigestion is charged by God with enforcing morality on the stomach.

- Victor Hugo

Morality, Stomach, Enforcing, Charged

Men become accustomed to poison by degrees.

- Victor Hugo

Men, Poison, Degrees, Accustomed

Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause.

- Victor Hugo

Strength, Strong, Words, Indicate

The soul has illusions as the bird has wings: it is supported by them.

- Victor Hugo

Bird, Soul, Wings, Illusions

A war between Europeans is a civil war.

- Victor Hugo

Civil War, Civil, Europeans, Between

Many great actions are committed in small struggles.

- Victor Hugo

Small, Committed, Many, Struggles

I put a Phrygian cap on the old dictionary.

- Victor Hugo

Old, Dictionary, Put, Cap

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.

- Victor Hugo

Beneath, Feels, Sings, Perched

Love is jealous, and ingenious in self-torture in proportion as it is pure and intense.

- Victor Hugo

Love, Jealous, Ingenious, Love Is

The most powerful symptom of love is a tenderness which becomes at times almost insupportable.

- Victor Hugo

Love, Most, Which, Love Is

To love is to act.

- Victor Hugo

Love, Act, To Love, Love Is

Hell is an outrage on humanity. When you tell me that your deity made you in his image, I reply that he must have been very ugly.

- Victor Hugo

Image, Been, Very, Deity

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.

- Victor Hugo

Mankind, Other, Which, Focal

The man who does not know other languages, unless he is a man of genius, necessarily has deficiencies in his ideas.

- Victor Hugo

Ideas, Other, Languages, Deficiencies

To rise from error to truth is rare and beautiful.

- Victor Hugo

Beautiful, Truth, Rare, Rise

Son, brother, father, lover, friend. There is room in the heart for all the affections, as there is room in heaven for all the stars.

- Victor Hugo

Son, Father's Day, Lover, Affections

When a man understands the art of seeing, he can trace the spirit of an age and the features of a king even in the knocker on a door.

- Victor Hugo

Art, King, Door, Understands

Despotism is a long crime.

- Victor Hugo

Long, Crime, Despotism

Try as you will, you cannot annihilate that eternal relic of the human heart, love.

- Victor Hugo

Love, Will, Eternal, Annihilate

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace.

- Victor Hugo

Courage, Small, Go, Sorrows

Blessed be Providence which has given to each his toy: the doll to the child, the child to the woman, the woman to the man, the man to the devil!

- Victor Hugo

Which, Given, His, Providence

A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor.

- Victor Hugo

Thought, Idle, Visible, Absorb

Idleness is the heaviest of all oppressions.

- Victor Hugo

Idleness, Heaviest

There is no such thing as a little country. The greatness of a people is no more determined by their numbers than the greatness of a man is by his height.

- Victor Hugo

Greatness, Country, More, Height

Because one doesn't like the way things are is no reason to be unjust towards God.

- Victor Hugo

Reason, Like, Unjust, No Reason

Be like the bird who, pausing in her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing she hath wings.

- Victor Hugo

Flight, Give, Feels, Awhile

I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, his cloak was out at the elbows, the water passed through his shoes, - and the stars through his soul.

- Victor Hugo

Love, Through, Very, Cloak

One sees qualities at a distance and defects at close range.

- Victor Hugo

Distance, Sees, Defects, Close

Architecture has recorded the great ideas of the human race. Not only every religious symbol, but every human thought has its page in that vast book.

- Victor Hugo

Race, Religious, Symbol, Human Race

The human soul has still greater need of the ideal than of the real. It is by the real that we exist; it is by the ideal that we live.

- Victor Hugo

Exist, Still, Ideal, Human Soul

Joy's smile is much closer to tears than laughter.

- Victor Hugo

Joy, Tears, Than, Closer

No one ever keeps a secret so well as a child.

- Victor Hugo

Well, Secret, Ever, Keeps

When God desires to destroy a thing, he entrusts its destruction to the thing itself. Every bad institution of this world ends by suicide.

- Victor Hugo

Suicide, Bad, Desires, Institution

Liberation is not deliverance.

- Victor Hugo

Freedom, Deliverance, Liberation

Conscience is God present in man.

- Victor Hugo

God, Man, Conscience, Present

When liberty returns, I will return.

- Victor Hugo

Liberty, Will, Return, Returns

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

- Victor Hugo

Power, Powerful, World, Forces

To love another person is to see the face of God.

- Victor Hugo

Love, Face, See, To Love

Smallness in a great man seems smaller by its disproportion with all the rest.

- Victor Hugo

Man, Rest, Smaller, Great Man

A great artist is a great man in a great child.

- Victor Hugo

Great, Man, Artist, Great Man

To love beauty is to see light.

- Victor Hugo

Love, Beauty, See, To Love

The wise man does not grow old, but ripens.

- Victor Hugo

Wise, Grow, Does, Wise Man

Sorrow is a fruit. God does not make it grow on limbs too weak to bear it.

- Victor Hugo

Sympathy, Grow, Limbs, Bear

It is by suffering that human beings become angels.

- Victor Hugo

Suffering, Angels, Human, Beings

A poet who is a bad man is a degraded being, baser and more culpable than a bad man who is not a poet.

- Victor Hugo

Bad, More, Bad Man, Degraded

Freedom in art, freedom in society, this is the double goal towards which all consistent and logical minds must strive.

- Victor Hugo

Art, Goal, Which, Logical

Initiative is doing the right thing without being told.

- Victor Hugo

Doing, Right Thing, Initiative

Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.

- Victor Hugo

Winter, Face, Drives, Human Face

He who is not capable of enduring poverty is not capable of being free.

- Victor Hugo

Poverty, Capable, Being, Enduring

An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise.

- Victor Hugo

Stupid, Better, Would, Paradise

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.

- Victor Hugo

Still, Vanished, European, Exists

By putting forward the hands of the clock you shall not advance the hour.

- Victor Hugo

Hands, Hour, Putting, Clock

One can resist the invasion of an army but one cannot resist the invasion of ideas.

- Victor Hugo

Brainy, Army, Resist, Invasion

Thought is more than a right - it is the very breath of man. Whoever fetters thought attacks man himself. To speak, to write, to publish, are things, so far as the right is concerned, absolutely identical. They are the ever-enlarging circles of intelligence in action; they are the sonorous waves of thought.

- Victor Hugo

Thought, Concerned, Very, Breath

Love that is not jealous is neither true nor pure.

- Victor Hugo

Love, Jealous, Nor, Neither

Our life dreams the Utopia. Our death achieves the Ideal.

- Victor Hugo

Death, Utopia, Ideal, Achieves

Whenever a man's friends begin to compliment him about looking young, he may be sure that they think he is growing old.

- Victor Hugo

Think, May, Sure, Begin

A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil.

- Victor Hugo

Inspirational, Through, Like, Veil

Thought is the labor of the intellect, reverie is its pleasure.

- Victor Hugo

Thought, Intellect, Reverie, Labor

The ideal and the beautiful are identical; the ideal corresponds to the idea, and beauty to form; hence idea and substance are cognate.

- Victor Hugo

Beauty, Beautiful, Ideal, Identical

Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.

- Victor Hugo

Adversity, Men, Makes, Monsters

There are no rules, no models; rather, there are no rules other than the general laws of Nature.

- Victor Hugo

Other, General, Models, No Rules

Fashions have done more harm than revolutions.

- Victor Hugo

Funny, More, Harm, Revolutions

It is the end. But of what? The end of France? No. The end of kings? Yes.

- Victor Hugo

End, France, Yes, Kings

A noble soul and real poetic talent are almost always inseparable.

- Victor Hugo

Always, Inseparable, Almost, Poetic

Peace is the virtue of civilization. War is its crime.

- Victor Hugo

Peace, War, Civilization, Crime

Stupidity talks, vanity acts.

- Victor Hugo

Stupidity, Vanity, Acts, Talks

There are fathers who do not love their children; there is no grandfather who does not adore his grandson.

- Victor Hugo

Love, Fathers, His, Grandfather

It is nothing to die. It is frightful not to live.

- Victor Hugo

Live, Die, Nothing, Frightful

The animal is ignorant of the fact that he knows. The man is aware of the fact that he is ignorant.

- Victor Hugo

Animal, Fact, Aware, Ignorant

Wisdom is a sacred communion.

- Victor Hugo

Wisdom, Sacred, Communion

Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.

- Victor Hugo

Change, Leaves, Intact, Opinions

But when ill indeed, Even dismissing the doctor don't always succeed.

- Victor Hugo

Doctor, Always, Even, Indeed

The beautiful has but one type, the ugly has a thousand.

- Victor Hugo

Beautiful, Ugly, Type, Thousand

A mother's arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them.

- Victor Hugo

Mother, Sleep, Mother's Day, Arms

When a woman is talking to you, listen to what she says with her eyes.

- Victor Hugo

Relationship, Woman, She, Listen

The word is the Verb, and the Verb is God.

- Victor Hugo

God, Word, Verb

Scepticism, that dry caries of the intelligence.

- Victor Hugo

Intelligence, Scepticism, Dry

Concision in style, precision in thought, decision in life.

- Victor Hugo

Decision, Style, Thought, Precision

Nothing else in the world... not all the armies... is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.

- Victor Hugo

Powerful, World, Else, Armies

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

- Victor Hugo

Stronger, World, Idea, Armies

Life's greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved.

- Victor Hugo

Happiness, Loved, Convinced, Greatest

People do not lack strength; they lack will.

- Victor Hugo

Strength, People, Will, Lack

As the purse is emptied, the heart is filled.

- Victor Hugo

Heart, Filled, Purse

Genius: the superhuman in man.

- Victor Hugo

Man, Genius, Superhuman

Style is the substance of the subject called unceasingly to the surface.

- Victor Hugo

Surface, Substance, Subject, Style

Our acts make or mar us, we are the children of our own deeds.

- Victor Hugo

Children, Own, Acts, Deeds

No one knows like a woman how to say things which are at once gentle and deep.

- Victor Hugo

Deep, How, Which, Gentle

One believes others will do what he will do to himself.

- Victor Hugo

Will, He, Believes, Himself

Toleration is the best religion.

- Victor Hugo

Best, Religion, Toleration

There is nothing like a dream to create the future.

- Victor Hugo

Future, Dream, Like, Create

I love all men who think, even those who think otherwise than myself.

- Victor Hugo

Love, Think, I Love, Otherwise

Perseverance, secret of all triumphs.

- Victor Hugo

Perseverance, Triumphs, Secret

No one can keep a secret better than a child.

- Victor Hugo

Better, Keep, Than, Secret

I'm religiously opposed to religion.

- Victor Hugo

Religion, Opposed

Genius is a promontory jutting out into the infinite.

- Victor Hugo

Genius, Out, Infinite

Those who live are those who fight.

- Victor Hugo

Live, Who, Those, Fight

When a man is out of sight, it is not too long before he is out of mind.

- Victor Hugo

Mind, Before, Too, Sight

Men like me are impossible until the day when they become necessary.

- Victor Hugo

Men, Me, Like, Necessary

Do not let it be your aim to be something, but to be someone.

- Victor Hugo

Something, Someone, Your, Aim

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