Victor Hugo Quotes

Forty is the old age of youth; fifty the youth of old age.

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

When a woman is talking to you, listen to what she says with her eyes.

One sees qualities at a distance and defects at close range.

A great artist is a great man in a great child.

To love beauty is to see light.

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.

An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise.

There is a sacred horror about everything grand. It is easy to admire mediocrity and hills; but whatever is too lofty, a genius as well as a mountain, an assembly as well as a masterpiece, seen too near, is appalling.

Short as life is, we make it still shorter by the careless waste of time.

Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and cannot remain silent.

Pain is as diverse as man. One suffers as one can.

Son, brother, father, lover, friend. There is room in the heart for all the affections, as there is room in heaven for all the stars.

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.

A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil.

Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.

Be like the bird who, pausing in her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing she hath wings.

Fashions have done more harm than revolutions.

Music expresses that which can not be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.

Because one doesn't like the way things are is no reason to be unjust towards God.

Blessed be Providence which has given to each his toy: the doll to the child, the child to the woman, the woman to the man, the man to the devil!

But when ill indeed, Even dismissing the doctor don't always succeed.

By putting forward the hands of the clock you shall not advance the hour.

Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees.

Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.