Quotes by Victor Hugo

"Dear God! how beauty varies in nature and art. In a woman the flesh must be like marble; in a statue the marble must be like flesh."

"Death has its revelations: the great sorrows which open the heart open the mind as well; light comes to us with our grief. As for me, I have faith; I believe in a future life. How could I do otherwise? My daughter was a soul; I saw this soul. I touched it, so to speak."

"Our life dreams the Utopia. Our death achieves the Ideal."

"A faith is a necessity to a man. Woe to him who believes in nothing."

"Liberation is not deliverance."

"Fashions have done more harm than revolutions."

"There is nothing like a dream to create the future."

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

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

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

"Intelligence is the wife, imagination is the mistress, memory is the servant."

"A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil."

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

"To love is to act."

"Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters."

"Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent."

"All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come."

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

"Toleration is the best religion."

"Love is a portion of the soul itself, and it is of the same nature as the celestial breathing of the atmosphere of paradise."

"Joy's smile is much closer to tears than laughter."

"Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled. From that divine tear and from that human smile is derived the grace of present civilization."

"Society is a republic. When an individual tries to lift themselves above others, they are dragged down by the mass, either by ridicule or slander."

"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 a sacred communion."

"He, who every morning plans the transactions of the day, and follows that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through a labyrinth of the most busy life."

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