Quotes from Victor Hugo

His tavern sign bore witness to his feats of arms. He had painted it himself, being a Jack-of-all-trades who did everything badly.

It is painful to break the sad links to the past

Certainly, I approve of political opinions, but there are people who do not know where to stop.

I am come to warn you. I am come to impeach your happiness. It is fashioned out of the misery of your neighbour. You have everything, and that is composed of the nothing of others… As for me, I am but a voice. Mankind is a mouth, of which I am the cry. You shall hear me!

He sleeps although so much he was denied. He lived and when his dear love left him died. It happened of itself, in the easy way that in the morning night time follows day

Succeed; that is the advice that falls, drop by drop, from the overhanging fruit of corruption.

The judge speaks in the name of justice,' he said. 'The priest speaks in the name of pity, which is only a higher form of justice.' (Bishop Myriel)

There are no bad plants or bad men. There is only bad husbandry.

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

Quant au mode de prier, peu importe le nom, pourvu qu'il soit sincère. Tournez votre livre à l'envers et soyez à l'infini As for how you pray, the words do not matter if they are sincere. Turn your prayer book upside down and face the infinite.

The infinite space that each man carries within himself, wherein despairingly he contrasts the movement of his spirit with the acts of his life, is and overpowering thing.

The most beautiful of altars, he said, is the soul of an unhappy creature consoled and thanking God.