Quotes from Victor Hugo

As long as ignorance and misery exist in the world, books like the one you are about to read are, perhaps, not entirely useless

The reduction of the universe to one single being, the expansion of one single being into God: That is what love is.

The cities make ferocious men because they make corrupt men. The mountain, the sea, the forest, make savage men; they develop the fierce side, but often without destroying the humane side.

True or false, what is said about people often has as much bearing on their lives and especially on their destinies as what they do.

A certain amount of dreaming is good, like a narcotic in discreet doses. It lulls to sleep the fevers of the mind at labor, which are sometimes severe, and produces in the spirit a soft and fresh vapor which corrects the over-harsh contours of pure thought, fills in gaps here and there, binds together and rounds off the angles of the ideas. But

Sister, never a precaution on the part of the priest, against his fellow-man. That which his fellow does, God permits. Let us confine ourselves to prayer, when we think that a danger is approaching us. Let us pray, not for ourselves, but that our brother may not fall into sin on our account.

Reeking blood, overcrowded cemeteries, weeping mothers—these are formidable plaintiffs. When the earth is suffering from a surcharge, there are mysterious moanings from the deeps that the heavens hear. Napoleon had been impeached before the Infinite, and his fall was decreed. He annoyed God. Waterloo is not a battle; it is the changing face of the universe.

To destroy abuses is not sufficient; customs must be modified. The mill is there no longer; the wind is still there.

To-morrow fulfils its work irresistibly, and it is already fulfilling it to-day.

Did not i say that things would come right of themselves? said the Bishop. Then he added, with a smile, To him who contents himself with the surplice of a curate, God sends the cope of an archbishop. Monseigneur, murmured the cure, throwing back his head with a smile. God or the Devil.

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

It is a charming quality of the happiness we inspire in others that, far from being diminished like a reflection, it comes back to us enhanced.