Victor hugo Inspirational Quotes

Dirt has been shrewdly termed "misplaced material.

A creditor is worse than a slave-owner; for the master owns only your person, but a creditor owns your dignity, and can command it.

A smile is the same as sunshine; it banishes winter from the human countenance.

Youth is the future smiling at a stranger, which is itself.

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.

People do not lack strength; they lack will.

What is the cat?" he exclaimed. "It is a corrective. God, having made the mouse, said, 'I've made a blunder.' And he made the cat. The cat is the erratum of the mouse. The mouse, plus the cat, Is the revised and corrected proof of creation.

Love would never be a promise of a rose garden unless it is showered with light of faith, water of sincerity and air of passion. Sometimes we make love with our eyes. Sometimes we make love with our hands. Sometimes we make love with our bodies. Always we make love with our hearts. If I could reach up and hold a star for every time you've made me smile, the entire evening sky would be in the palm of my hand. To love another person is to see the face of God.

The thirst for the Infinite proves infinity.

Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.

He who is not capable of enduring poverty is not capable of being free.

The rich's paradise was created by the poor's hell.

The learned man knows that he is ignorant.

When a man is out of sight, it is not too long before he is out of mind.

Diamonds are to be found only in the darkness of the earth, and truth in the darkness of the mind.

Nihilism has no substance. There is no such thing as nothingness, and zero does not exist. Everything is something. Nothing is nothing.

Religion, Society, and Nature--these are the three struggles of man.

A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor.

If you want to civilize a man, begin with his grandmother.

Excitement is not enjoyment: in calmness lies true pleasure. The most precious wines are sipped, not bolted at a swallow.

There are many tongues to talk, and but few heads to think.

Reason is intelligence taking exercise. Imagination is intelligence with an erection.

In joined hands there is still some token of hope, in the clenched fist none.

To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.

Sacrificing the earth for paradise is giving up the substance for the shadow.

Diamonds are found only in the dark places of the earth, truths are found only in the depths of thought.

You look at a star for two reasons, because it is luminous, and because it is impenetrable. You have beside you a sweeter radiance and a greater mystery, woman.

The wicked envy and hate; it is their way of admiring.

He who is not master of his own thoughts is not accountable for his own deeds.

Go to sleep in peace. God is awake.

A criminal remains a criminal whether he uses a convict's suit or a monarch's crown.

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.

England has two books, the Bible and Shakespeare. England made Shakespeare,but the Bible made England.

If you look in the eyes of the young, you see flame. If you look in the eyes of the old, you see light.

These are true felicities. No joy beyond these joys. Love is the only ecstasy, everything else weeps

When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right.

Those who do not weep, do not see.

Nothing makes a man so adventurous as an empty pocket.

Let us fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices are the real murderers. The great dangers lie within ourselves.

It is not so easy to keep silent when the silence is a lie.

You preserve your shame but you kill your glory.

Solitude either develops the mental power, or renders men dull and vicious.

Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.

No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.

If you don't build castles in the air you won't build anything on the ground.

Not being heard is no reason for silence.

They say love is blindness of heart; I say not to love is blindness.

Between the government which does evil and the people who accept it - there is a certain shameful solidarity.

The future has many names: For the weak, it means the unattainable. For the fearful, it means the unknown. For the courageous, it means opportunity.

Toleration is the best religion.

Music expresses that which cannot be put into words.

Work, which makes a man free, and thought, which makes him worthy of freedom.

Dying is nothing. What's terrible is not to live.

If you are stone, be magnetic; if a plant, be sensitive; but if you are human be love.

To love another person is to see the face of God.

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.

Being good is easy, what is difficult is being just.

The first symptom of true love in a man is timidity, in a young woman, boldness. This is surprising, and yet nothing is more simple. It is the two sexes tending to approach each other and assuming each the other's qualities.

An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise.

Often when we think we are knotting one thread, we are tying quite another.

To give thanks in solitude is enough. Thanksgiving has wings and goes where it must go. Your prayer knows much more about it than you do.

Wisdom is the health of the soul.

Dreaming is happiness. Waiting is life.

To put everything in balance is good, to put everything in harmony is better.

God has made the cat to give man the pleasure of caressing the tiger.

Each of our passions, even love, has a stomach that must not be overloaded. We must in everything write the word 'finis' in time; we must restrain ourselves, when it becomes urgent; we must draw the bolt on the appetite, play a fantasia on the violin, then break the strings with our own hand. The Wise man is he who knows when and how to stop.

Almost all our desires, when examined, contain something too shameful to reveal.

Many great actions are committed in small struggles.

To die is nothing; but it is terrible not to live.

Curiosity is one of the forms of feminine bravery.

Puns are the droppings of soaring wits.

Initiative is doing the right thing without being told.

The delight we inspire in others has this enchanting peculiarity that, far from being diminished like every other reflection, it returns to us more radiant than ever.

Peace is the virtue of civilization. War is its crime.

Our mind is enriched by what we receive, our heart by what we give.

Every man is a book in which God himself writes.

Sorrow is a fruit. God does not make it grow on limbs too weak to bear it.

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

The great acts of love are done by those who are habitually performing small acts of kindness.

Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.

Philosophy is the microscope of thought.

Common sense is in spite of, not as the result of education.

The future has several names. For the weak, it is impossible; for the fainthearted, it is unknown; but for the valiant, it is ideal.

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

To rise from error to truth is rare and beautiful.

Virtue has a veil, vice a mask.

As with stomachs, we should pity minds that do not eat.

Love is reducing the universe to one being.

A day will come when markets, open to trade, and minds, open to ideas, will become the sole battlefield.

Be happy without picking flaws.

Emotion is always new.

The most terrible of motives and the most unanswerable of responses: Because.

Nothing is more dangerous than discontinued labor; it is habit lost. A habit easy to abandon, difficult to resume.

It is not enough to be happy, one must be content.

The wise man does not grow old, but ripens.

One can resist the invasion of an army but one cannot resist the invasion of ideas.

Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.

Go out in the world and work like money doesn't matter, sing as if no one is listening, love as if you have never been hurt, and dance as if no one is watching.

When God desires to destroy a thing, he entrusts its destruction to the thing itself. Every bad institution of this world ends by suicide.

God is behind everything, but everything hides God.

The heart becomes heroic through passion. It is no longer composed of anything but what is pure; it no longer rests upon anything but what is elevated and great.

Doing nothing is happiness for children and misery for old men.

Success is a very hideous thing. Its false resemblance to merit deceives men.

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

Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars.

Love is like a tree, it grows of its own accord, it puts down deep roots into our whole being.

Perseverance, secret of all triumphs.

Teach the ignorant as much as you can; society is culpable in not providing a free education for all and it must answer for the night which it produces. If the soul is left in darkness sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.

Knowledge is a weight added to conscience.

He did not study God; he was dazzled by him.

What a grand thing, to be loved! What a grander thing still, to love!

Youth, even in its sorrows, always has a brilliancy of its own.

Caution is the eldest child of wisdom.

I think, therefore I doubt.

True thinkers are characterized by a blending of clearness and mystery.

When you get an idea into your head you find it in everything.

God has set his intentions in the flowers, in the dawn, in the spring, it is his will that we should love.

Don't educate your children to be rich. Educate them to be happy, so they know the value of things, not the price.

Let us study things that are no more. It is necessary to understand them, if only to avoid them.

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