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Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo Quotes

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Famous Victor Hugo Quotes

“There is a determined though unseen bravery that defends itself foot by foot in the darkness against the fatal invasions of necessity and dishonesty. Noble and mysterious triumphs that no eye sees, and no fame rewards, and no flourish of triumph salutes. Life, misfortunes, isolation, abandonment, poverty, are battlefields that have their heroes; obscure heroes, sometimes greater than the illustrious heroes.”

SometimesEyePovertyDarknessGreaterFeetHeroFameBraveryRewardsDeterminedNobleMysteriousTriumphIsolationMisfortunesObscureUnseenAbandonmentInvasionDishonestyBattlefieldsSalute
Book:Les Misérables
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“In this way, his unhappy soul struggled with its anguish. Eighteen hundred years before this unfortunate man, the mysterious Being, in whom all the sanctities and all the sufferings of humanity come together, He too, while the olive trees trembled in the fierce breath of the Infinite, had brushed away the fearful cup that appeared before him, streaming with shadow and running over with darkness, in the star-filled depths. (pg. 236)”

MenWayYearsSoulRunningTogetherSufferingHumanityStarsDarknessTreeHundredShadowInfiniteBreathsFilledDepthUnhappyMysteriousCupsFearfulFierceUnfortunateAnguishEighteenSanctityOlivesStreamingOlive Trees
Author:Victor Hugo
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“Nothing can be sadder or more profound than to see a thousand things for the first and last time. To journey is to be born and die each minute...All the elements of life are in constant flight from us, with darkness and clarity intermingled, the vision and the eclipse; we look and hasten, reaching out our hands to clutch; every happening is a bend in the road...and suddenly we have grown old. We have a sense of shock and gathering darkness; ahead is a black doorway; the life that bore us is a flagging horse, and a veiled stranger is waiting in the shadows to unharness us.”

FirstsLooksHandsLastsDiesWaitingBlackBornVisionDarknessJourneyMinutesThousandElementsHappeningsShadowHorseConstantProfoundStrangerFlightClarityReachingShockReach OutBoresLast TimeGatheringDoorwaysEclipseClutchFirsts And LastsBends In The RoadElements Of Life
Author:Victor Hugo
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“Such is the remorseless progression of human society, shedding lives and souls as it goes on its way. It is an ocean into which men sink who have been cast out by the law and consigned, with help most cruelly withheld, to moral death. The sea is the pitiless social darkness into which the penal system casts those it has condemned, an unfathomable waste of misery. The human soul, lost in those depths, may become a corpse. Who shall revive it?”

MenWayHumansMayHas BeensSoulHelpingLawLostSocialMoralDarknessSeaGoes OnWasteOceanPrisonMiseryDepthCastsJailCorpsesHuman SoulProgressionHuman SocietyReviveUnfathomableRemorselessPrison System
Book:Les Misérables
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“In this world, which is so plainly the antechamber of another, there are no happy men. The true division of humanity is between those who live in light and those who live in darkness. Our aim must be to diminish the number of the latter and increase the number of the former. That is why we demand education and knowledge.”

MenWorldLightHumanityNumbersDarknessThis WorldDemandIncreaseAimFormerLatterDivisionDiminishHappy ManEducation And Knowledge
Book:Les Misérables
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“Nothing can be more depressing than to expose, naked to the light of thought, the hideous growth of argot. Indeed it is like a sort of repellent animal intended to dwell in darkness which has been dragged out of its cloaca. One seems to see a horned and living creature viciously struggling to be restored to the place where it belongs. One word is like a claw, another like a sightless and bleeding eye; and there are phrases which clutch like the pincers of a crab. And all of it is alive with the hideous vitality of things that have organized themselves amid disorganization.”

Has BeensLightSeemsEyeGrowthAnimalDarknessStruggleAliveCreaturesNakedPhrasesOrganizedDepressingVitalityOne WordBleedingHideousClawsLiving CreaturesClutchCrabsDisorganization
Book:Les Misérables
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“The book which the reader now holds in his hands, from one end to the other, as a whole and in its details, whatever gaps, exceptions, or weaknesses it may contain, treats of the advance from evil to good, from injustice to justice, from falsity to truth, from darkness to daylight, from blind appetite to conscience, from decay to life, from bestiality to duty, from Hell to Heaven, from limbo to God. Matter itself is the starting-point, and the point of arrival is the soul. Hydra at the beginning, an angel at the end.”

MayBookSoulEndsMatterWholeHandsEvilHeavenJusticeDarknessHellDutyReaderWeaknessConscienceAngelTreatsBlindInjusticeStartingDetailsExceptionGapsAppetiteDecayDaylightArrivalsStarting PointLimboFalsityHydra
Author:Victor Hugo
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“To gaze into the depths of the sea is, in the imagination, like beholding the vast unknown, and from its most terrible point of view. The submarine gulf is analogous to the realm of night and dreams. There also is sleep, unconsciousness, or at least apparent unconsciousness, of creation. There in the awful silence and darkness, the rude first forms of life, phantomlike, demoniacal, pursue their horrible instincts.”

FirstsDreamFormNightImaginationSleepViewsSilenceDarknessSeaCreationTerribleInstinctDepthPoint Of ViewHorriblePursueAwfulRealmsRudeUnconsciousnessSubmarines
Book:Toilers of the Sea: Works Of Hugo
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“Wonderful nature has a double meaning, which dazzles great minds and blinds uncultivated souls. When man is ignorant, when the desert is filled with visions, the darkness of solitude is added to the darkness of intelligence; hence, in man, the possibilities of perdition”

MenMindSoulVisionDarknessWonderfulPossibilitySolitudeFilledIgnorantDesertGreat MindsDazzlePerditionDouble MeaningWonderful Nature
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Victor Hugo (Illustrated)
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