1,711 Quotes by Victor Hugo

Joy’s smile is much closer to tears than laughter.

A woman’s best qualities are harmful if undiluted with prudence.

It was SHE. Whoever has loved knows all the radiant meaning contained in the three letters of this word ’she.

I’d like a drink. I desire to forget life. Life is a hideous invention by somebody I don’t know. It doesn’t last, and it’s good for nothing. You break your neck simply living.

You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving. The great acts of love are done by those who are habitually performing small acts of kindness. We pardon to the extent that we love. Love is knowing that even when you are alone, you will never be lonely again, and great happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved. Loved for ourselves, and even loved in spite of ourselves.

There is in every village a torch – the teacher; and an extinguisher – the priest.

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...

Happy, even in the midst of anguish, is he to whom God has given a soul worthy of love and of unhappiness! He who has not viewed the things of this world and the heart of man under this double light has seen nothing and knows nothing of the true.

The women laughed and wept; the crowd stamped their feet enthusiastically, for at that moment Quasimodo was really beautiful. He was handsome – this orphan, this foundling, this outcast.