Victor Hugo
Les Misérables, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
Most quoted
"To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy then is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness."
— from Letter to Juliette Drouet
"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 fell in love because they looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only."
— from Les Misérables, 1862
"When love has fused and mingled two beings in a sacred and angelic unity, they have found the secret of life; they are no longer anything but the two boundaries of the same ideal; they are no longer anything but two wings of the same spirit. Love, soar!"
— from Les Misérables, 1862
All quotes by Victor Hugo (260)
The human heart is a bottomless pit.
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
The mind is a garden, and thoughts are the seeds. You can grow flowers or you can grow weeds.
The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
The human heart is like a vast ocean, full of secrets.
The only thing worse than a liar is a hypocrite.
The greatest gift you can give someone is your time, your attention, your love, your concern.
The human mind is a wonderful thing. It starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public.
Life is a voyage, and we are all sailors. The wind is not always in our favor, but we must keep sailing.
The mind is a strange thing. It can create its own heaven and its own hell.
The soul has illusions as the bird has wings; it lives by them. If it loses them, it dies.
Change your opinions, keep your principles. Change your leaves, keep your roots.
Great perils have this beauty, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers.
The word 'glory' has been completely spoiled by the military. It should be used to describe the beauty of the human spirit.
The supreme end of art is to produce a beautiful effect.
The beautiful is that which is in harmony with God.
Death is a debt we all must pay.
The tomb is a an antechamber; the life beyond is a palace.
The soul is a celestial bird, which has its nest in the heart of man.
Man is an angel who has gone astray.
Contemporaries of Victor Hugo
Other Literatures born within 50 years of Victor Hugo (1802–1885).