1,711 Quotes by Victor Hugo

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

We are all broken. That's how the light gets in

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

On another occasion, upon receiving a letter informing him of the death of one of the local gentry which set forth in great detail the deceased's many titles of nobility and those of his family, he exclaimed: "Death has a broad back! What a great load of honours it can be made to bear, and how assiduous are the minds of men that they can use even the tomb in the service of vanity.

Blacheville smiles with the self-satisfied smugness of a man whose vanity is tickled

The principle is twofold, do not forget. The book, as a book, belongs to the author, but as a thought, it belongs – the word is not too extreme – to the human race. All intelligences, all minds, are eligible, all own it. If one of these two rights, the right of the writer and the right of the human mind, were to be sacrificed, it would certainly be the right of the writer, because the public interest is our only concern, and that must take precedence in anything that comes before us.

Le ciel était absolument noir, il n'y avait plus d'étoiles, mais évidemment il en voyait une.

Melancholy is the happiness of being sad.

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