Quotes from Victor Hugo

Sin as little as possible-that is the law of mankind. Not to sin at all is the dream of the angel. All earthly things are subject to sin. Sin is like gravity.

Nothing supplies the place of this instinct. All the nuns in the world are not worth as much as one mother in the formation of a young girl's soul.

Smoking blood, over-filled cemeteries, mothers in tears,—these are formidable pleaders. When the earth is suffering from too heavy a burden, there are mysterious groanings of the shades, to which the abyss lends an ear.

To be a saint is the exception; to be an upright man is the rule. Err, fall, sin if you will, but be upright.

There is M. Geborand purchasing paradise for a sou.

Release is not the same as liberation. You get out of jail, all right, but you never stop being condemned.

If there is anything more poignant than a body agonizing for want of bread, it is a soul dying for hunger of light.

Let us never fear robbers nor murderers. Those are dangers from without, petty dangers. Let us fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices are the real murderers. The great dangers lie within ourselves. What matters is what threatens our head or our purse! Let us think only of that which threatens our soul.

No one could have told: all that was known was, that when he returned from Italy he was a priest.

People who are overwhelmed with troubles never do look back. They know only too well that misfortune follows in their footsteps.

The misery of a child is interesting to a mother, the misery of a young man is interesting to a young woman, the misery of an old man is interesting to nobody. This of all miseries is the coldest.

Liberation is not deliverance. One gets free from the galleys, but not from the sentence. That