1,711 Quotes by Victor Hugo

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.

Waterloo is a battle of the first rank won by a captain of the second

It is often necessary to know how to obey a woman in order sometimes to have the right to command her.

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

Love, in the eyes of the world, is either a carnal appetite or a vague fancy, which possession extinguishes or absence destroys. That is why it is commonly said, with a strange abuse of words, that passion does not endure.

How frightened hypocrisy hastens to defend itself.

To pay compliments to the one we love is the first method of caressing, a demi-audacity venturing. A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil.

Thus, during those nineteen years of torture and slavery, did this soul rise and fall at the same time. Light entered on the one side, and darkness on the other.

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