1,711 Quotes by Victor Hugo

Thought is the toil of the intelligence, revery its voluptuousness. To replace thought with revery is to confound a poison with a food.

Curiosity is gluttony. To see is to devour.

أو تدرين يا فتاة ما الشقاء بمعنى كلمة الشقاء؟ إنه أن يكون الإنسان إنساناً ولا إنسان، و رجلا مكفوفاً عن مصائر الرجال، فيحب ولا ينال، ثم يخسر دينه في سبيل لذة الوصال، فلا يلقى بعد خسرانه منها إلا الصدود و النكال، ثم يراها بعد ذلك و هي معبودته المقدسة، تضع كنز حسنها طواعية تحت قدمي وحش ليفترسه، بل ليلوثه و يدنسه، و هي قريرة العين راضية الفؤاد

No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.

All their teeth are yellow. No tooth-brush ever entered that convent. Brushing one's teeth is at the top of a ladder at whose bottom is the loss of one's soul.

The time for it has come, and it would indeed be strange if, in the present age, liberty, like light, should penetrate everywhere, except into that one place where freedom finds its most natural realm - in the world of ideas.

Be serious,” said Enjolras. “I am wild,” replied Grantaire.

The merciful precepts of Christ will at last suffuse the Code and it will glow with their radiance. Crime will be considered an illness with its own doctors to replace your judges and its hospitals to replace your prisons. Liberty shall be equated with health. Ointments and oil shall be applied to limbs that were once shackled and branded. Infirmities that once were scourged with anger shall now be bathed with love. The cross in place of the gallows: sublime and yet so simple.

A saint addicted to excessive self-abnegation is a dangerous associate; he may infect you with poverty, and a stiffening of those joints needed for advancement.