"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."
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Quote collection
Victor Hugo quotes (page 16 of 49)
966 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Wherever the Turkish hoof trods, no grass grows."
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"I write with one hand, but I fight with both."
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"Stupidity talks, vanity acts."
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"Peace is the virtue of civilization. War is its crime."
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"A language does not become fixed. The human intellect is always on the march, or, if you prefer, in movement, and languages with it."
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"Nothing can be sadder or more profound than to see a thousand things for the first and last time. To journey is to be born and die each minute...All the elements of life are in constant flight from us, with darkness and clarity intermingled, the vision and the eclipse; we look and hasten, reaching out our hands to clutch; every happening is a bend in the road...and suddenly we have grown old. We have a sense of shock and gathering darkness; ahead is a black doorway; the life that bore us is a flagging horse, and a veiled stranger is waiting in the shadows to unharness us."
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"The soul has illusions as the bird has wings: it is supported by them."
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"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."
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"Let us sacrifice one day to gain perhaps a whole life."
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"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."
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"Prayer is an august avowal of ignorance."
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"We may remark in passing that to be blind and beloved may, in this world where nothing is perfect, be among the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness. The supreme happiness in life is the assurance of being loved; of being loved for oneself, even in spite of oneself; and this assurance the blind man possesses. In his affliction, to be served is to be caressed. Does he lack anything? no. Possessing love he is not deprived of light. A love, moreover, that is wholly pure. There can be no blindness where there is this certainty."
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"What was more needed by this old man who divided the leisure hours of his life, where he had so little leisure, between gardening in the daytime, and contemplation at night? Was not this narrow enclosure, with the sky for a background, enough to enable him to adore God in his most beautiful as well as in his most sublime works? Indeed, is not that all, and what more can be desired? A little garden to walk, and immensity to reflect upon. 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."
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"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."
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"I like the laughter that opens the lips and the heart, shows at the same time the pearls and the soul."
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"To err is human. To loaf is Parisian."
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"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."
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"For, to make deserts, God, who rules mankind, Begins with kings, and ends the work by wind."
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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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