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Victor Hugo

76 quotes

“I will be Chateaubriand or nothing.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) first seen 1817 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Written at the age of 15 in one of his notebooks (c. 1817), as quoted in The Literary Movement in France During the Nineteenth Century (1897) by Georges Pellissier
“Ces deux moitiés de Dieu, le pape et l'empereur!”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) first seen 1830 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Hernani (1830), Act IV, Scene II
“Dieu s'est fait homme; soit. Le diable s'est fait femme!”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) first seen 1838 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ruy Blas (1838), Act II, Scene V
“La raison, c'est l'intelligence en exercice; l'imagination c'est l'intelligence en érection”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) first seen 1845 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Unpublished notebook from 1845-50. Published in Seebacher (ed.), Oeuvres Complètes, vol. 10, p. 158 (Laffont, 1989). English translation from Robb, Victor Hugo p. 249 (Norton, 1997).
“Vous tenez à l’exemple [de la peine de mort]. Pourquoi? Pour ce qu’il enseigne. Que voulez-vous enseigner avec votre exemple? Qu’il ne faut pas tuer. Et comment enseignez-vous qu’il ne faut pas tuer? En tuant.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) first seen 1848 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Plaidoyer contre la peine de mort" [An argument against the death penalty], Assemblée Constituante, Paris (15 September 1848)
“One can no more pray too much than love too much.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) first seen 1862 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Les Misérables (1862), page 55, as translated by Charles Wilbour and provided by A.L. Bert Publishers. Source: Shawn Thomas (June 24, 2013): Quotes & Illustrations From Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. Archived from the or…
“Happy, even in anguish, is he to whom God has given a soul worthy of love and of grief!”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) first seen 1862 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Les Misérables (1862), page 746, as translated by Charles Wilbour and provided by A.L. Bert Publishers. Source: Shawn Thomas (June 24, 2013): Quotes & Illustrations From Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. Archived from the o…
“The best way to worship God is to love your wife.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) first seen 1190 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Les Misérables (1862), page 1190, as translated by Charles Wilbour and provided by A.L. Bert Publishers. Source: Shawn Thomas (June 24, 2013): Quotes & Illustrations From Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. Archived from the …
“To love or to have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life. To love is a consummation.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) first seen 1190 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Les Misérables (1862), page 1190, as translated by Charles Wilbour and provided by A.L. Bert Publishers. Source: Shawn Thomas (June 24, 2013): Quotes & Illustrations From Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. Archived from the …
“Il y a maintenant en France dans chaque village un flambeau allumé, le maître d'école, et une bouche qui souffle dessus, le curé.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) first seen 1877 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Histoire d'un crime. Déposition d'un témoin (1877), Deuxième Journée. La lutte, ch. III: La barricade Saint-Antoine
“Je n'entre qu'à moitié dans la guerre civile. Je veux bien y mourir, je ne veux pas y tuer.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) first seen 1852 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Histoire d'un crime (The History of a Crime) [written 1852, published 1877], Quatrième journée. La victoire, ch. II: Les Faits de la nuit. Quartier des Halles. Trans. T.H. Joyce and Arthur Locker
“On résiste à l'invasion des armées; on ne résiste pas à l'invasion des idées.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) first seen 1852 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Histoire d'un Crime (The History of a Crime) [written 1852, published 1877], Conclusion, ch. X. Trans. T.H. Joyce and Arthur Locker
“Waterloo! Waterloo! Waterloo! Morne plaine!”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) first seen 1853 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: L'Expiation, from Les Châtiments (1853), Book V
“L'œil était dans la tombe et regardait Caïn.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) first seen 1859 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: La Conscience, from La Légende des siècles (1859), First Series, Part I
“Vous créez un frisson nouveau.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) first seen 1859 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Charles Baudelaire (6 October 1859)
“Jésus a pleuré, Voltaire a souri; c’est de cette larme divine et de ce sourire humain qu’est faite la douceur de la civilisation actuelle.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) first seen 1878 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech, "Le centenaire de Voltaire", on the 100th anniversary of the death of Voltaire, Théâtre de la Gaîté, Paris (30 May 1878); published in Actes et paroles - Depuis l'exil (1878)
“Was it possible that Napoleon should win the battle of Waterloo? We answer, No! Why? Because of Wellington? Because of Blücher? No! Because of God! For Bonaparte to conquer at Waterloo was not the law of the nineteenth century. It was time that this vast man should fall. He had been impeached before the Infinite! He had vexed God! Waterloo was not a battle. It was the change of front of the Universe!”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) first seen 1878 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Battle of Waterloo", reported in Oliver Ernesto Branch, ed., The Hamilton Speaker (1878), p. 53
“Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Thoughts," Postscriptum de ma vie, in Victor Hugo's Intellectual Autobiography, Funk and Wagnalls (1907) as translated by Lorenzo O'Rourke
“C'est ici le combat du jour et de la nuit... Je vois de la lumière noire.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Last words (1885-05-22); quoted in Olympio, ou la vie de Victor Hugo by André Maurois (1954)
“There shall be no slavery of the mind.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted by Courtlandt Palmer, president of the Nineteenth Century Club of New York, while introducing Robert G. Ingersoll as a speaker in a debate, "The Limitations of Toleration," at the Metropolitan Opera House, New Yo…
“Lever à six, coucher à dix, Dîner à dix, souper à six, Font vivre l'homme dix fois dix.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Inscription in Hugo's dining room, quoted in Gustave Larroumet, La maison de Victor Hugo: Impressions de Guernesey (1895), Chapter III
“Ce besoin de l’immatériel est le plus vivace de tous. Il faut du pain; mais avant le pain, il faut l’idéal.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) first seen 1860 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Les fleurs," (ca. 1860 - 1865), from Oeuvres complètes (1909); published in English as The Memoirs of Victor Hugo, trans. John W. Harding (1899), Chapter VI: Love in Prison, part II
“Je représente un parti qui n'existe pas encore, le parti Révolution-Civilisation. Ce parti fera le vingtième siècle. Il en sortira d'abord les États-Unis d'Europe, puis les États-Unis du Monde.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Océan - Tas de pierres (1942)
“To divinise is human, to humanise is divine.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) first seen 1831 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Les feuilles d'automne (1831)
“Philosophy is the microscope of thought. Everything desires to flee from it, but nothing escapes it.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Aimer, c'est agir”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Last words of his diary, written two weeks before his death, published in Victor Hugo : Complete Writings (1970), edited by Jean-Jacques Pauvert
“Oriental studies have never been so intensive.... In the century of Louis XIV one was a Hellenist, today one is an Orientalist.... The Orient has become a sort of general preoccupation.... We shall see great things. The old Asiatic barbarism may not be as devoid of higher men as our civilization would like to believe.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Victor Hugo. in Jean Biès, Littérature française et pensée hindoue des origines à 1950. quoted in India’s Impact on French Thought and Literature: Eighteenth to Twentieth Century by Michel Danino (Published in Critical …
“À quelle heure, s'il vous plaît?”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: At what hour, please? retort to Victor Cousin, after he claimed he could pinpoint the start of the (perceived) decay of the French language: 1978.
“Vous avez des ennemis? Mais c'est l'histoire de tout homme qui a fait une action grande ou crée une idée neuve. C'est la nuée qui bruit autour de tout ce qui brille. Il faut que la renommé ait des ennemis comme il faut que la lumière ait des moucherons. Ne vous en inquiétez pas, dédaignez! Ayez la sérénité dans votre esprit comme vous avez la limpidité dans votre vie.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) first seen 1845 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Villemain (1845)
“It is time, we repeat, that this monstrous slumber of men's consciences should end. It must not be, after that fearful scandal, the triumph of crime, that a scandal still more fearful should be presented to mankind: the indifference of the civilized world. Book I, III”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At certain epochs of history, there are pleiades of great men; at other epochs, there are pleiades of vagabonds. But do not confound the epoch, the moment of Louis Bonaparte, with the 19th century: the toadstool sprouts at the foot of the oak, but it is not the oak. Book I, VI”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At certain epochs in history, the whole human race, from all points of the earth, fix their eyes upon some mysterious spot whence it seems that universal destiny is about to issue. Book I, VI”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Alas! of what is France thinking? Of a surety, we must awake this slumbering nation, we must take it by the arm, we must shake it, we must speak to it; we must scour the fields, enter the villages, go into the barracks, speak to the soldier who no longer knows what he is doing, speak to the labourer who has in his cabin an engraving of the Emperor, and who, for that reason, votes for everything they ask; we must remove the radiant phantom that dazzles their eyes; this whole situation is nothing but a huge and deadly joke. Book I, VI”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let us sum up this government! Who is at the Élysée and the Tuileries? Crime. Who is established at the Luxembourg? Baseness. Who at the Palais Bourbon? Imbecility. Who at the Palais d'Orsay?...And who are in the prisons... in the dungeons...in exile? Law, honour, intelligence, liberty, and the right. Book I, VI”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The present government is a hand stained with blood, which dips a finger in the holy water. Book II, X”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We who combat them are "the eternal enemies of order." We are—for they can as yet find nothing but this worn-out word—we are demagogues. In the language of the Duke of Alva, to believe in the sacredness of the human conscience, to resist the Inquisition, to brave the state for one's faith, to draw the sword for one's country, to defend one's worship, one's city, one's home, one's house, one's family, and one's God, was called vagabondism... The man is a demagogue in the nineteenth century, who in the sixteenth would have been a vagabond. Book II, XI”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“From this tribune, incessantly vibrating, gushed forth perpetually a sort of sonorous flood, a mighty oscillation of sentiments and ideas, which, from billow to billow, and from people to people, flowed to the utmost confines of the earth, to set in motion those intelligent waves which are called souls. Book V, V”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Two great problems hang over the world. War must disappear, and conquest must continue. These two necessities of a growing civilization seemed to exclude each other. How satisfy the one without failing the other? Book V, VII”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now it is all over. The great work is accomplished. And the results of the work!...Get all you can, gorge yourselves, grow a fat paunch; it is no longer a question of being a great people, of being a powerful people, of being a free nation, of casting a bright light; France no longer sees its way to that. Book V, IX”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now there is no more noise, no more confusion, no more talking, no more parliament, or parliamentarism. The Corps Législatif, the Senate, the Council of State, have all had their mouths sewn up. Book V, IX”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Be proud, Frenchmen! Lift high your heads, Frenchmen! You are no longer anything, and this man is everything! He holds in his hand your intelligence, as a child holds a bird. Any day he pleases, he can strangle the genius of France. Book V, IX”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The orator resumes: "And if it should happen some day that a man, having in his hand the five hundred thousand officeholders who constitute the government, and the four hundred thousand soldiers composing the army, if it should happen that this man should tear up the Constitution, should violate every law, break every oath, trample upon every right, commit every crime, do you know what your irremovable magistrates, instructors in the right, and guardians of the law, would do? They would hold their tongues." Book VIII, IV”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“From every agglomeration of men, from every city, from every nation, there inevitably arises a collective force. Place this collective force at the service of liberty, let it rule by universal suffrage, the city becomes a commune, the nation becomes a republic. This collective force is not, of its nature, intelligent. Belonging to all, it belongs to no one; it floats about, so to speak, outside of the people. Conclusion, Part First, II”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On the day when the human conscience shall lose its bearings, on the day when success shall carry the day before that forum, all will be at an end. The last moral gleam will reascend to heaven. Darkness will be in the mind of man. You will have nothing to do but to devour one another, wild beasts that you are! Conclusion, Part First, III”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With moral degradation goes political degradation. Conclusion, Part First, III”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now it is all over. The French nation is dead. Conclusion, Part Second, I”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let us have faith. No, let us not be cast down.To despair is to desert. Let us look to the future.The future,—no one knows what tempests still separate us from port, but the port, the distant and radiant port, is in sight; the future, we repeat, is the republic for all men; let us add, the future is peace with all men. Conclusion, Part Second, II”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let us not fall into the vulgar error, which is to curse and to dishonour the age in which we live. However deep the shame of the present, whatever blows we receive from the fluctuation of events, whatever the apparent desertion or the momentary lethargy of mental vigour, none of us... will repudiate the magnificent epoch in which we live, the virile age of mankind. Conclusion, Part Second, II”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This was the work that the nineteenth century had done among men, and was continuing in glorious, fashion to do,—that century of sterility, that century of domination, that century of decadence, that century of degradation, as it is called by the pedants, the rhetoricians, the imbeciles, and all that filthy brood of bigots, of knaves, and of sharpers, who sanctimoniously slaver gall upon glory, who assert that Pascal was a madman, Voltaire a coxcomb, and Rousseau a brute, and whose triumph it would be to put a fool's-cap upon the human race. Conclusion, Part Second, II”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“O my country! it is at this moment, when I see you bleeding, inanimate, your head hanging, your eyes closed, your mouth open, and no words issuing therefrom, the marks of the whip upon your shoulders, the nails of the executioner's shoes imprinted upon your body, naked and ashamed, and like a thing deprived of life, an object of hatred, of derision, alas! it is at this moment, my country, that the heart of the exile overflows with love and respect for you! Conclusion, Part Second, II”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source