Victor Hugo

“Human thought has no limit. At its risk and peril, it analyzes and dissects its own fascination. We could almost say that, by a sort of splendid reaction, it fascinates nature; the mysterious world surrounding us returns what it receives; it is likely that contemplators are contemplated.”

“But listen, there will be more joy in heaven over the tears of a repentant sinner than over the white robes of a hundred just men.”

“He was out there alone with himself, composed, tranquil, adoring, comparing the serenity of his heart to the serenity of the skies, moved in the darkness by the visible splendors of the constellations and the invisible splendor of God, opening his soul to the thoughts that fall from the Unknown. In such moments, offering up his heart as the flowers of night emit their perfume, lit like a lamp in the center of the starry night, expanding in ecstasy the midst of creation’s universal radiance, perhaps he could not have told what was happening in his own mind; he felt something floating away from him, and something descending upon him, mysterious exchanges of the soul with the universe.”

“No corruption is possible with the diamond.”

“What pleases us in those who are rising is less pleasing in those who are falling. We do not admire the combat when there is no danger; and in any case, the combatants of the first hour alone have the right to be the exterminators in the last. He who has not been a determined accuser during prosperity should hold his peace in adversity. He alone who denounces the success has a right to proclaim the justice of the downfall.”

“We pray together, we are afraid together, and then we go to sleep. Even if Satan came into the house, no one would interfere. After all, what is there to fear in this house? There is always one with us who is the strongest. Satan may visit our house, but the good Lord lives here.”

“One resists the invasion of armies; one does not resist the invasion of ideas.”

“To die for lack of love is horrible. The asphyxia of the soul.”

“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.”

“To love beauty is to see light.”

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

“Plea Against the Death PenaltyLook, examine, reflect. You hold capital punishment up as an example. Why? Because of what it teaches. And just what is it that you wish to teach by means of this example? That thou shalt not kill. And how do you teach that "thou shalt not kill"? By killing. I have examined the death penalty under each of its two aspects: as a direct action, and as an indirect one. What does it come down to? Nothing but something horrible and useless, nothing but a way of shedding blood that is called a crime when an individual commits it, but is (sadly) called "justice" when society brings it about. Make no mistake, you lawmakers and judges, in the eyes of God as in those of conscience, what is a crime when individuals do it is no less an offense when society commits the deed.”

“The malicious have a dark happiness.”

“I wanted to see you again, touch you, know who you were, see if I would find you identical with the ideal image of you which had remained with me and perhaps shatter my dream with the aid of reality.-Claude Frollo ”

“The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved -- loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.”

“He who opens a school door, closes a prison.”

“Nothing discernible to the eye of the spirit is more brilliant or obscure than man; nothing is more formidable, complex, mysterious, and infinite. There is a prospect greater than the sea, and it is the sky; there is a prospect greater than the sky, and it is the human soul.”

“Life's great happiness is to be convinced we are loved.”

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

“What is said about men often has as much influence upon their lives, and especially upon their destinies, as what they do.”

“Fashions have done more harm than revolutions.”

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

“Reason is intelligence taking exercise. Imagination is intelligence with an erection.”

“Be like the bird that, passing on her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings.”

“Success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit.... They confound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud.”

“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent”

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

“The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only.”

“The pupil dilates in darkness and in the end finds light, just as the soul dilates in misfortune and in the end finds God.”

“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.”

“Large, heavy, ragged black clouds hung like crape hammocks beneath the starry cope of the night. You would have said that they were the cobwebs of the firmament.”

“What matters deafness of the ear, when the mind hears? The one true deafness, the incurable deafness, is that of the mind.”

“So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation which, in the midst of civilization, artificially creates a hell on earth, and complicates with human fatality a destiny that is divine; so long as the three problems of the century - the degradation of man by the exploitation of his labour, the ruin of women by starvation and the atrophy of childhood by physical and spiritual night are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words and from a still broader point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, there should be a need for books such as this.”

“Nature is pitiless; she never withdraws her flowers, her music, her fragrance, and her sunlight from before human cruelty or suffering.”

“من نميگويم هرگز نبايد در نگاه اول عاشق شد اما اعتقاد دارم بايد براي بار دوم هم نگاه کرد”

“Every bird that flies has the thread of the infinite in its claw.”

“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. God is awake.”

“Nothing makes a man so adventurous as an empty pocket.”

“No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.”

“For the rest, he was the same to all men, the fashionable world and the ordinary people. He judged nothing in haste, or without taking account of the cirumstances. He said, 'Let me see how the fault arose.”

“What Is Love? I have met in the streets a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul”