Victor Hugo

“The hatred of luxury is not an intelligent hatred. It implies a hatred of arts.”

“To lie a little is not possible: he who lies, lies the whole lie.”

“the cold and bitter scorn of the passers-by penetrated her very flesh and soul like a north wind.”

“Although this detail has no connection whatever with the real substance of what we are about to relate, it will not be superfluous, if merely for the sake of exactness in all points, to mention here the various rumors and remarks which had been in circulation about him from the very moment when he arrived in the diocese. True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do. M. Myriel was the son of a councillor of the Parliament of Aix; hence he belonged to the nobility of the bar. It was said that his father, destining him to be the heir of his own post, had married him at a very early age, eighteen or twenty, in accordance with a custom which is rather widely prevalent in parliamentary families. In spite of this marriage, however, it was said that Charles Myriel created a great deal of talk. He was well formed, though rather short in stature, elegant, graceful, intelligent; the whole of the first portion of his life had been devoted to the world and to gallantry.”

“So long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Miserables cannot fail to be of use.”

“It seemed as though he had for a soul the book of the natural law.”

“Look not at the face, young girl, look at the heart. The heart of a handsome youngman is often deformed. There are hearts in which love does not keep. Young girl, thepine is not beautiful; it is not beautiful like the poplar, but it keeps its foliage inwinter.”

“Without knowing it, Javert in his awful happiness was deserving of pity, like every ignorant man who triumphs. Nothing could have been more poignant or more heartrending than that countenance on which was inscribed all the evil in what is good.”

“À ceux qui ignorent, enseignez-leur [...]Le coupable n'est pas celui qui y fait le péché, mais celui qui y a fait l'ombre.”

“These are dark radiances. They have no suspicion that they are to be pitied. Certainly they are so. He who does not weep does not see. They are to be admired and pitied, as one would both pity and admire a being at once night and day, without eyes beneath his lashes but with a star on his brow.”

“The sole social evil is darkness; humanity is identity, for all men are made of the same clay.”

“This cavern is below all, and the enemy of all; it is hatred, without exception.”

“To attempt, to brave, to persist, and persevere, to be faithful to one's self, to wrestle with destiny, to astound the catastrophe by the slight fear which is causes us, now to confront unjust power, again to insult intoxicated victory, to hold firm and withstand -- such is the example which nations need and the light which electrifies them.”

“l riso è il sole che scaccia l'inverno dal volto umano.”

“Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”

“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.”

“Are you afraid of the good you might do?”

“Najveća sreća života je ubeđenje da smo voljeni zbog nas samih, ili još bolje, uprkos nas samih.”

“What a grand thing it is to be loved! What a far grander thing it is to love! The heart becomes heroic, by dint of passion.”

“Oh! would that we were lying side by side in the same grave, hand in hand, and from time to time, in the darkness, gently caressing a finger -- that would suffice for my eternity!”

“Nothing is small, in fact; any one who is subject to the profound and penetrating influence of nature knows this.”

“Life is a theatre set in which there are but few practicable entrances.”

“It is an error to imagine that fate can be exhausted, and that one has reached the bottom of anything whatever.”

“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.”

“He loved books; books are cold but safe friends.”

“Let us reflect, if we wish to be brilliant. Too much improvisation empties the mind in a stupid way. Running beer gathers no froth. No haste, gentlemen.”

“The need of the immaterial is the most deeply rooted of all needs. One must have bread; but before bread, one must have the ideal.”

“Loving is almost a substitute for thinking. Love is a burning forgetfulness of all other things. How shall we ask passion to be logical?”

“With Cosette’s garter, Homer would make the Iliad. He would put into his poem an old babbler like me, and he would call him Nestor.”

“He had given Cosette a dress of Binche lace that had come down to him from his own grandmother. “These fashions have come round again,” he said, “old things are all the rage, and the young women of my old age dress like the old women of my childhood,”

“What is the cat?” he exclaimed. “It is a corrective. God, having made the mouse, said, ‘I’ve made a blunder.’ And he made the cat. The cat is the erratum of the mouse. The mouse, plus the cat, Is the revised and corrected proof of creation.”

“As we have explained, in first love the soul is taken long before the body; later, the body is taken long before the soul; sometimes the soul is not taken at all.”

“M. de Salaberry was not amused.”

“Madame Magloire sometimes called him ‘Your Highness.’ One day, rising from his armchair, he went to his library for a book. It was on one of the upper shelves, and as the bishop was rather short, he could not reach it. ’Madame Magloire,’ said he, ‘bring me a chair. My highness cannot reach that shelf.”

“One day—when the emperor had come to call on his uncle the cardinal—our worthy priest happened to be waiting as his Majesty went by. Noticing that the old man looked at him with a certain curiosity, Napoleon turned around and said brusquely, ‘Who is this good man looking at me?’‘Sire,’ replied M. Myriel, “you are looking at a good man, and I at a great one. May we both be the better for it.”That evening the emperor asked the cardinal the priest’s name, Still later, M. Myriel was totally surprised to learn he had been appointed Bishop of Digne.”

“That night, before going to bed, he went on to say, 'Never be afraid of thieves and murderers. They represent the dangers without, which are not worth worrying about. Be afraid of ourselves. Prejudices are the real thieves, vices are the murderers. The greatest dangers are within us. Who cares who threatens our heads or our purses! Let's think only of what threatens our souls.”

“To be a saint is the exception; to be a just person is the rule. Err, stumble, commit sin, but be one of the just.”

“The paradise of the rich is made out of the hell of the poor.”

“You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving. The great acts of love are done by those who are habitually performing small acts of kindness. We pardon to the extent that we love. Love is knowing that even when you are alone, you will never be lonely again. & great happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved. Loved for ourselves. & even loved in spite of ourselves.”

“Love is a fault; so be it.”

“Indeed, is not that all, and what more can be desired? A little garden to walk, and immensity to reflect on. At his feet something to cultivate and gather; above his head something to study and meditate upon: a few flowers on the earth, and all the stars in the sky.”

“Sleep comes more easily than it returns.”

“Another story must begin!”

“I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat was threadbare - there were holes at his elbows; the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul.”

“Marius was of the temperament that sinks into grief and remains there; Cosette was of the sort that plunges in and comes out again.”

“Then, with the barricades complete, the posts assigned, the muskets loaded, the lookouts placed, alone in these fearful streets in which there were now no pedestrians, surrounded by these dumb, and seemingly dead houses, which throbbed with no human motion, wrapped in the deepening shadows of the twilight, which was beginning to fall, in the midst of this obscurity and silence, through which they felt the advance of something inexpressibly tragic and terrifying, isolated, armed, determined, tranquil, they waited.”

“An increase of tenderness always ended by boiling over and turning to indignation. He was at the point where we seek to adopt a course, and to accept what tears us apart.”

“Love has no middle term; either it destroys, or it saves. All human destiny is this dilemma. This dilemma, destruction or salvation, no fate proposes more inexorably than love. Love is life, if it is not death. Cradle; coffin, too. The same sentiment says yes and no in the human heart. Of all the things God has made, the human heart is the one that sheds most light, and alas! most night.”

“Argot is nothing more nor less than a wardrobe in which language, having some bad deed to do, disguises itself. It puts on word-masks and metaphoric rags.”

“The soul helps the body, and at certain moments raises it. It is the only bird that sustains its cage.”