Victor Hugo Quotes

"The first symptom of love in a young man is shyness; the first symptom in a woman, it's boldness."

"There are obstinate and unknown braves who defend themselves inch by inch in the shadows against the fatal invasion of want and turpitude. There are noble and mysterious triumphs which no eye sees. No renown rewards, and no flourish of trumpets salutes. Life, misfortune, isolation, abandonment, and poverty and battlefields which have their heroes."

"One cannot be a good historian of the outward, visible world without giving some thought to the hidden, private life of ordinary people; and on the other hand one cannot be a good historian of this inner life without taking into account outward events where these are relevant. They are two orders of fact which reflect each other, which are always linked and which sometimes provoke each other."

"There are people who observe the rules of honor as we observe the stars: from a distance"

"For prying into any human affairs, non are equal to those whom it does not concern."

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

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

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

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

"There is nothing like a dream to create the future."

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

"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."

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

"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."

"Stupidity talks, vanity acts."

"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."

"Habit is the nursery of errors."

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

"When liberty returns, I will return."

"No one can keep a secret better than a child."