1,711 Quotes by Victor Hugo

Before him he saw two roads, both equally straight; but he did see two; and that terrified him – he who had never in his life known anything but one straight line. And, bitter anguish, these two roads were contradictory.

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

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.

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

Justice has its anger, Monsieur Bishop, and the wrath of justice is an element of progress. No matter what they say, the French Revolution is the greatest advance taken by mankind since the coming of Christ.

It is man’s consolation that the future is to be a sunrise instead of a sunset.

For true poetry, complete poetry, consists in the harmony of contraries. Hence, it is time to say aloud – and it is here above allthat exceptions prove the rule – that everything that exists in nature exists in art.

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.

Sometimes he used a spade in his garden, and sometimes he read and wrote. He had but one name for these two kinds of labor; he called them gardening. ‘The Spirit is a garden,’ said he.