Victor Hugo Quotes

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

"Loving is half of believing."

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

"Caution is the eldest child of wisdom"

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

"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."

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

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

"In each age men of genius undertake the ascent. From below, the world follows them with their eyes. These men go up the mountain, enter the clouds, disappear, reappear, People watch them, mark them. They walk by the side of precipices. They daringly pursue their road. See them aloft, see them in the distance; they are but black specks. On they go. The road is uneven, its difficulties constant. At each step a wall, at each step a trap. As they rise the cold increases. They must make their ladder, cut the ice and walk on it., hewing the steps in haste. A storm is raging. Nevertheless they go forward in their madness. The air becomes difficult to breath. The abyss yawns below them. Some fall. Others stop and retrace their steps; there is a sad weariness. The bold ones continue. They are eyed by the eagles; the lightning plays about them: the hurricane is furious. No matter, they persevere."

"People do not lack strength; they lack will."

"At the shrine of friendship never say die, let the wine of friendship never run dry - Les Miserables"

"Fashions have done more harm than revolutions."

"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."

"A compliment is like a kiss through a veil."

"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."

"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."

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

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

"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."

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