201 Victor Hugo Quotes From The Romantic Les Miserables Writer

Victor Hugo is one of the most loved French romantic writers, known to express beautiful sentiments in words.

Readers love him for his contributions in poems and plays, but his novels are masterpieces. The 'Notre-Dame De Paris' (1831; 'The Hunchback Of Notre-Dame') and 'Les Misérables' (1862) are both gems in literature history.

Hugo was born in 1802 and had a literary career of almost 60 years where he wrote about love, God, faith, religion, and life.

Hugo had expertise in almost all fields, and a few Victor Hugo quotes are unforgettable. For instance, "Even the darkest night will end, and the sun will rise," "Music expresses that which cannot be said," and "Sleep in peace God is awake," are just a few of his most famous sayings.

Victor Hugo quotes talk about the happiness of life or the zeal to live, and a hope to believe in God, for which the readers loved Victor Hugo and his Victor Hugo quotes.

Below is a beautiful list of quotes by Victor Hugo. While you enjoy these Victor Hugo quotes, do also take a look at these ['Les Miserables quotes'] and [Shakespeare love quotes].
 

Famous Victor Hugo Quotes

Are you ready to discover the best Victor Hugo quotes? These are some of the most famous Victor Hugo quotes from all depths of literature, including some Victor Hugo 'Les Miserables' quotes.

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

-Victor Hugo.

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

-Victor Hugo.

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

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

4. "Taste is the common sense of genius."

-Victor Hugo.

5. "He never went out without a book under his arm, and he often came back with two."

-Victor Hugo.

6. "To die is nothing, but it is terrible not to live."

-Victor Hugo,  'Les Miserables'.

7. "The ideal and the beautiful are identical; the ideal corresponds to the idea, and beauty to form; hence idea and substance are cognate."

-Victor Hugo.

8. "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."

-Victor Hugo,  'Les Miserables'.

9. "Life is the flower for which love is the honey."

-Victor Hugo.

10. "At the end of life death is a departure; but at life's beginning a departure is death."

-Victor Hugo,  'Les Miserables'.

11. "The future has several names. For the weak, it is impossible; for the faint-hearted, it is unknown; but for the valiant, it is ideal."

-Victor Hugo.

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

-Victor Hugo.

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

-Victor Hugo,  'Les Miserables'.

14. " There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come."

-Victor Hugo.

15. "Let us sacrifice one day to gain perhaps a whole life."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

16. "There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

17. "Progress must believe in the face of God. The good cannot be served by impiety. An atheist is an evil leader of the human race."

-Victor Hugo.

19. "He who opens a school door closes a prison."

-Victor Hugo.

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

-Victor Hugo.

21. "And you will keep me safe and you will keep me close and rain'll make the flowers grow."

-Victor Hugo, ' Les Miserables'.

22. "Many great actions are committed in small struggles."

-Victor Hugo.

23. “Ladies, a second piece of advice – do not marry; marriage is a graft; it may take hold or not. Shun the risk.”

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

24. "The straight line, a respectable optical illusion which ruins many a man."

-Victor Hugo,' Les Miserables'.

25. "... change your leaves, keep intact your roots."

-Victor Hugo.

26. "I put a Phrygian cap on the old dictionary."

-Victor Hugo.

27. "Change your opinions, keep to your principles..."

-Victor Hugo.

28. "To put everything in balance is good; to put everything in harmony is better."

-Victor Hugo.

29. "What would be ugly in a garden constitutes beauty in a mountain."

-Victor Hugo.

30. "He was fond of books, for they are cool and sure friends."

-Victor Hugo, ' Les Miserables'.

31. "Nothing makes a man so adventurous as an empty pocket."

-Victor Hugo.

32. "The wise man does not grow old, but ripens."

-Victor Hugo.

33. "For prying into any human affairs, non are equal to those whom it does not concern."

-Victor Hugo.

34. "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."

-Victor Hugo.

35. "The word which God has written on the brow of every man is Hope."

-Victor Hugo.

36. "A mother's arms are made of tenderness, and children sleep soundly in them."

-Victor Hugo, ' Les Miserables'.

37. "Whom man kills God restores to life; whom the brothers pursue the Father redeems. Pray and believe and go onward into life."

-Victor Hugo.

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

-Victor Hugo.

39. "Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats."

-Victor Hugo.

40. "To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is slept out is a spark."

-Victor Hugo.

41. "Promise to give me a kiss on my brow when I am dead. -I shall feel it."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

42. "There is something more terrible than a hell of suffering – a hell of boredom."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

43. "Try as you will, you cannot annihilate that eternal relic of the human heart, love."

-Victor Hugo.

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

-Victor Hugo.

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

-Victor Hugo.

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

-Victor Hugo.

47. "There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of body, the soul is on its knees."

-Victor Hugo.

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

-Victor Hugo.

49. "Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet."

-Victor Hugo.

50. "What a gloomy thing, not to know the address of one’s soul."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

Most Referred Victor Hugo Quotes

Victor Hugo quotes are famous all over the world. Have you heard any of these Victor Hugo quotes before? Which of these Victor Hugo quotes is your favorite?

51. "Caution is the eldest child of wisdom."

-Victor Hugo.

52. "The greatest products of architecture are less the works of individuals than of society; rather the offspring of a nation's effort, than the inspired flash of a man of genius"

-Victor Hugo.

53. "For prying into any human affairs, non are equal to those whom it does not concern."

-Victor Hugo.

54. "Love is the foolishness of man and the wisdom of God."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

55. "Everything being a constant carnival, there is no carnival left."

-Victor Hugo.

56. "Where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incidence, chaos will soon reign."

-Victor Hugo.

57. "What a grand thing, to be loved; what a grander thing still, to love"

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

58. "If you wish to understand what Revolution is, call it Progress; and if you wish to understand what Progress is, call it Tomorrow."

-Victor Hugo.

59. "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."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

60. "The ideal and the beautiful are identical; the ideal corresponds to the idea, and beauty to form; hence idea and substance are cognate.”

-Victor Hugo.

61. "I find pleasure in looking at an uncultivated field; it represents possibilities."

-Victor Hugo.

62. "Adversity makes men and prosperity makes monsters"

-Victor Hugo.

63. "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."

-Victor Hugo.

64. "There are people who observe the rules of honor as we observe the stars: from a distance"

-Victor Hugo.

65. "I’d rather be hissed at for a good verse than applauded for a bad one."

-Victor Hugo.

66. "The first symptom of love in a young man is timidity; in a girl boldness."

-Victor Hugo.

67. "A study can be made against invasion by an army. No stand can be made against invasion by an idea."

-Victor Hugo.

68. "Whom man kills God restores to life; whom the brothers pursue the Father redeems. Pray and believe and go onward into life."

-Victor Hugo.

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

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

70. "Initiative is doing the right thing without being told."

-Victor Hugo.

71. "In joined hands there is still some token of hope, in the clinched fists none"

-Victor Hugo, 'The Toilers Of The Sea'.

72. "What is fright by night is curiosity by day."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

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

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

74. "The human soul has still greater need of the ideal than of the real."

-Victor Hugo.

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

-Victor Hugo.

76. "The soul helps the body, and at certain moments raises it. It is the only bird that sustains its cage."

-Victor Hugo.

77. "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."

-Victor Hugo.

78. "Fashions have done more harm than revolutions."  

-Victor Hugo.

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

-Victor Hugo.

80. "I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, his cloak was out at the elbows, the water passed through his shoes, – and the stars through his soul."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

81. "You are adorable, mademoiselle. I study your feet with the microscope and your soul with the telescope."

-Victor Hugo, ' Les Miserables'.

82. "To reform a man, you must begin with his grandmother."

-Victor Hugo.

83. "I was dying when you came."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

84. "When liberty returns, I will return."

-Victor Hugo.

85. "Portion of the soul itself, and it is of the same nature as the celestial breathing of the atmosphere of the paradise."

-Victor Hugo.

86. "Those who do not weep, do not see."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

87. "It is by the real that we exist, it is by the ideal that we live."

-Victor Hugo.

88. "A doctor’s door should never be closed, a priest's door should always be open."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

89. "To err is human. To loaf is Parisian."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

90. "If I speak, I am condemned. If I stay silent, I am damned!"

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

91. "I am a soul. I know well that what I shall render up to the grave is not myself. That which is me will go elsewhere. Earth, thou art not my abyss!”

-Victor Hugo.

92. "Women play with beauty, the way children play with their knives. They wound themselves with it."

-Victor Hugo.

93. "You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love is to live by it."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

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

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

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

-Victor Hugo.

96. "Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over, this is recognised: that the human race has been harshly treated, but that it has advanced."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

97. "Conscience is God present in man."

-Victor Hugo.

98. "Our acts make or mar us, we are the children of our own deeds."

-Victor Hugo.

99. "To lie a little is not possible: he who lies, lies the whole lie."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

100. "The straight line, a respectable optical illusion which ruins many a man."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

Famous Victor Hugo Quotes About Life

Are you enjoying these Victor Hugo quotes? Victor Hugo quotes about living life often discuss the hope of witnessing a better tomorrow. Do these Victor Hugo quotes make you feel hopeful?

101."He who knows the answer to this knows all things."

-Victor Hugo.

102."A day will come when there will be no battlefields, but markets opening to commerce and minds opening to ideas."

-Victor Hugo.

103."As the purse is emptied, the heart is filled."

-Victor Hugo.

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

-Victor Hugo.

105."I don't build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build."

-Victor Hugo.

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

-Victor Hugo.

107."When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable."

-Victor Hugo.

108."No fear, no regrets."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

109."The most powerful symptom of love is a tenderness which becomes at times almost insupportable."

-Victor Hugo.

110."If people do not love one another, I don't see what use there would be in having spring."

-Victor Hugo.    

111."A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in–what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

112."He sought to transform the grief that looks down into the grave by showing it the grief that looks up to the stars. "

-Victor Hugo.

113."The reduction of the universe to a single being, the expansion of a single being even to a god, this is love."

-Victor Hugo.

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

-Victor Hugo.

115."Our lives dream the utopia, our death achieves the ideal."

-Victor Hugo.

116."Life is a theater set in which there are but few practicable entrances."

-Victor Hugo.

117."People do not read stupidities with impunity."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

118."The pupil dilates in darkness and in the end, finds the light, just as the soul dilates in misfortune and in the end, finds God."

-Victor Hugo.

119."When we hear voices that we love, we need not understand the words they say."

-Victor Hugo.

120."The greatest acts of love are done by those who are habitually performing small acts of kindness."

-Victor Hugo.

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

-Victor Hugo.

122."Nothing can be sadder or more profound than to see a thousand things for the first and last time."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

123. "What makes night within us may leave stars."

-Victor Hugo.

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

-Victor Hugo.

125."Reason is intelligence taking exercise."

-Victor Hugo.

126."Not being heard is no reason for silence."

-Victor Hugo.

127."First problem. To produce wealth. Second problem. To distribute it."            

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

128."Scepticism, that dry caries of the intelligence."

-Victor Hugo.

129."You ask me what forces me to speak? a strange thing; my conscience."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

130."Freedom in art, freedom in society, this is the double goal towards which all consistent and logical minds must strive."

-Victor Hugo.

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

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

132."For prying into any human affairs, non are equal to those who concern"

-Victor Hugo.

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

-Victor Hugo.

134."Her soul trembled on her lips like a drop of dew on a flower."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

135."The omnipotence of evil has never resulted in anything but fruitless efforts. Our thoughts always escape from whoever tries to smother them."

-Victor Hugo.

136."I would rather be the head of a fly than the tail of a lion."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

137."It is by suffering that human beings become angels."

-Victor Hugo.

138."For prying into any human affairs, non are equal to those whom it does not concern.”

-Victor Hugo.

139."Virtue has a veil, vice a mask"

-Victor Hugo.      

140."His whole life was now summed up in two words: absolute uncertainty within an impenetrable fog."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

141."No one will understand so well as a woman, how to say things that are, at once, both sweet and deep."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

142."Nothing is really small; whoever is open to the deep penetration of nature knows this."

-Victor Hugo.

143."Because one doesn’t like the way things are, is no reason to be unjust towards God."

-Victor Hugo.

144."A shadow is hard to be seized by throat and dash to the ground."

-Victor Hugo.

145."There is always a patch of blue sky to lovers, although the rest of the world may see nothing but their umbrellas"

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

146."Love is jealous and ingenious in self-torture in proportion as it is pure and intense."

-Victor Hugo.

147."The holy law of Jesus Christ governs our civilization, but it does not yet permeate it."                

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

148."To die for lack of love is horrible. The asphyxia of the soul."

-Victor Hugo.

149."Progress is the stride of God."

-Victor Hugo.

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

-Victor Hugo.

Famous Victor Hugo Love Quotes

Victor had a zeal for expressing pain in love, he beautifully portrays the relationship between love and pain in his quotes.

151."Woe, alas, to those who have loved only bodies, forms, appearances! Death will rob them of everything. Try to love souls, you will find them again.”

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

152."... where there is no more hope, song remains."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

153."Joy is the reflex of terror."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

154."God is behind everything, but everything hides God. Things are black, creatures are opaque. To love a being is to render that being transparent."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

155."Not seeing people permits us to imagine them with every perfection."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

156."Taste is the common sense of genius."

-Victor Hugo.

157."Brothers, he who dies here dies in the radiance of the future, and we are entering a tomb all flooded with the dawn."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

158."Sire, you are looking at a plain man, and I am looking at a great man. Each of us may benefit"

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

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

-Victor Hugo.

160."She worked in order to live, and presently fell in love, also in order to live, for the heart, too, has its hunger."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

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

-Victor Hugo.

162."To be perfectly happy it does not suffice to possess happiness, it is necessary to have deserved it."

-Victor Hugo.

163."He feels himself buried in those two infinities, the ocean and the sky, at one and the same time: the one is a tomb; the other is a shroud."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

164."There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul."

-Victor Hugo.

165."Where the telescope ends the microscope begins, and who can say which has the wider vision?"

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

166."Love is a fault; so be it."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

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

-Victor Hugo.

168."'Monsieur' to a convict is a glass of water to a man dying of thirst at sea; ignominy thirsts for respect."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

169. "Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause."

-Victor Hugo.

170."Genius is a promontory jutting out into the infinite."

-Victor Hugo.

171. "To die of love is to live by it."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

172."There are things stronger than the strongest man."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

173."People weighed down with troubles do not look back; they know only too well that misfortune stalks them."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

174."Concision in style, precision in thought, the decision in life."

-Victor Hugo.

175."To know, to think, to dream. That is everything."

-Victor Hugo.

176."Children at once accept joy and happiness with quick familiarity, being themselves naturally all happiness and joy."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

177. "Another story must begin!"

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

178."Loving is almost a substitute for thinking. Love is a burning forgetfulness of all other things. How shall we ask passion to be logical?"

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

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

-Victor Hugo.

180."The eyes cannot see God well except through tears."

-Victor Hugo.

181. "Are you afraid of the good you might do?"

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

182. "Man lives by affirmation even more than he does by bread."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

183."As for methods of prayer, all are good, as long as they are sincere."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

184."I think, therefore I doubt."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

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

-Victor Hugo.

186."Everything bows to success, even grammar.

-Victor Hugo.

187."The flesh is the ashes, the soul is the flame."

-Victor Hugo.

188."To think of shadows is a serious thing."

-Victor Hugo.      

189."Death belongs to God alone; by what right do men touch that unknown thing?"

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

190."There is neither a foreign war nor a civil war; there is only just and unjust war."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

191."Nothing awakens a reminiscence like an odor."

-Victor Hugo.

192."I love all men who think, even those who think otherwise than myself."

-Victor Hugo.

193."Not seeing people permits us to imagine them with every perfection."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

194."Life is a voyage."

-Victor Hugo.

195."You who suffer because you love, love still more!"

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

196."Stupidity talks, vanity acts."

-Victor Hugo.

197. "People do not lack strength; they lack will."

-Victor Hugo.

198. "I have been loving you a little more every minute since this morning."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

199. "There are no weeds, and no worthless men. There are only bad farmers."

-Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'.

200. "Genius is a promontory jutting out into the infinite."

–Victor Hugo.

201. "There is an unspeakable dawn in a happy old age."

–Victor Hugo.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for 201 Victor Hugo quotes from the romantic 'Les Miserables' writer, then why not take a look at these William Wordsworth quotes and Keats quotes for more great quotes?

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