Victor Hugo Quotes: 105 Greatest Lessons on Life & Education

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Famous Poet Victor Hugo is considered the most important of the French Romantic writers. Though regarded in France as one of that country’s greatest poets, he is better known abroad for such novels as Notre-Dame de Paris (1831; The Hunchback of Notre-Dame) and Les Misérables (1862).

Victor Hugo is remembered as a beloved writer of the people, who knew how to write with simplicity and power of common joys and sorrows. He is also remembered for the verbal inventiveness and technical virtuosity with which he created poems ranging from intimate lyrics to visionary and prophetic epics.

Victor Hugo produced an enormous output of work, including the novels Notre-Dame de Paris (1831; The Hunchback of Notre-Dame) and Les Misérables (1862); the plays Cromwell (1827), Hernani (1830), and Ruy Blas (1838); and the poetry collections Les Châtiments (1853) and Les Contemplations (1856).

We are sharing here the best inspiring Quotes by Victor Hugo to find the motivation.

Greatest Quotes by Victor Hugo

Read Victor Hugo Quotes on various topics like life, love, education, mother, music, and from his book Les Misérables.

Best Life Quotes by Victor Hugo

1. “Concision in style, precision in thought, the decision in life.” ― Victor Hugo

2. “There is nothing like a dream to create the future.” ― Victor Hugo

3. “Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.” ― Victor Hugo

4. “It is nothing to die. It is frightful not to live.” ― Victor Hugo

5. “To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.” ― Victor Hugo

6. “Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.” ― Victor Hugo

7. “To put everything in balance is good, to put everything in harmony is better.” ― Victor Hugo

8. “Life is the flower for which love is the honey.” ― Victor Hugo

9. “The soul helps the body, and at certain moments raises it. It is the only bird that sustains its cage.” ― Victor Hugo

Best Love Quotes by Victor Hugo

10. “Love is a portion of the soul itself, and it is of the same nature as the celestial breathing of the atmosphere of paradise.” ― Victor Hugo

11. “Love is the foolishness of men, and the wisdom of God.” ― Victor Hugo

12. “When a woman is talking to you, listen to what she says with her eyes.” ― Victor Hugo

13. “To love beauty is to see light.” ― Victor Hugo

14. “Life is the flower for which love is the honey.” ― Victor Hugo

15. “Love is like a tree: it grows by itself, roots itself deeply in our being, and continues to flourish over a heart in ruin. The inexplicable fact is that the blinder it is, the more tenacious it is. It is never stronger than when it is completely unreasonable.” ― Victor Hugo

16. “The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved — loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.” ― Victor Hugo

17. “You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love, is to live by it.” ― Victor Hugo

18. “To love another person is to see the face of God.” ― Victor Hugo

19. “The first symptom of love in a young man is timidity; in a girl boldness.” ― Victor Hugo

20. “I have been loving you a little more every minute since this morning.” ― Victor Hugo

Best Music Quotes by Victor Hugo

21. “Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.” ― Victor Hugo

22. “Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.” ― Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo Quotes about God

23. “Hope is the word which God has written on the brow of every man.” ― Victor Hugo

24. “Love is the foolishness of men, and the wisdom of God.” ― Victor Hugo

Happiness Quotes by Victor Hugo

25. “The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather in spite of ourselves.” ― Victor Hugo

26. “Life’s greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved.” ― Victor Hugo

Thoughts on Courage by Victor Hugo

27. “Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.” ― Victor Hugo

Laughter Thoughts by Victor Hugo

28. “Laughter is sunshine, it chases winter from the human face.” ― Victor Hugo

29. “Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.” ― Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo Quotes a mother’s arms

30. “A mother’s arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them.” ― Victor Hugo

Thoughts on Age by Victor Hugo

31. “Forty is the old age of youth; fifty the youth of old age.” ― Victor Hugo

32. “When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age.” ― Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo Best Inspiring Quotes

33. “Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.” ― Victor Hugo

34. “If you wish to understand what Revolution is, call it Progress; and if you wish to understand what Progress is, call it Tomorrow.” ― Victor Hugo

35. “Nothing else in the world… not all the armies… is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.” ― Victor Hugo

36. “He who opens a school door, closes a prison.” ― Victor Hugo

37. “It is not easy to keep silent when silence is a lie.” ― Victor Hugo

38. “Be like the bird who, pausing in her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing she hath wings.” ― Victor Hugo

39. “There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.” ― Victor Hugo

40. “All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come.” ― Victor Hugo

41. “Intelligence is the wife, imagination is the mistress, memory is the servant.” ― Victor Hugo

42. “Peace is the virtue of civilization. War is its crime.” ― Victor Hugo

43. “Great perils have this beauty, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers.” ― Victor Hugo

44. “There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.” ― Victor Hugo

45. “Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause.” ― Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo Quotes on Education

46. “To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.” ― Victor Hugo

47. “Common sense is in spite of, not as the result of education.” ― Victor Hugo

48. “He who opens a school door, closes a prison.” ― Victor Hugo

49. “The learned man knows that he is ignorant.” ― Victor Hugo

Les Miserables Quotes by Victor Hugo

50. “Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.” ― Victor Hugo

51. “Every day has its great grief or its small anxiety. … One cloud is dispelled, another form. There is hardly one day in a hundred of real joy and bright sunshine.” ― Victor Hugo

52. “Faith is necessary to men; woe to him who believes in nothing!” ― Victor Hugo

53. “God is behind everything, but everything hides God. Things are black, creatures are opaque. To love a being is to render that being transparent.” ― Victor Hugo

54. “Diamonds are to be found only in the darkness of the earth, and truth in the darkness of the mind.” ― Victor Hugo

55. “Great grief is a divine and terrible radiance which transfigures the wretched.” ― Victor Hugo

56. “His mind could do without faith, but his heart could not do without friendship.” ― Victor Hugo

57. “I have been loving you a little more every minute since this morning.” ― Victor Hugo

58. “If no one loved, the sun would go out.” ― Victor Hugo

59. “If people did not love one another, I really don’t see what use there would be in having any spring.” ― Victor Hugo

60. “If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness.” ― Victor Hugo

61. “If there is anything more heartbreaking than a body perishing for lack of bread, it is a soul which is dying from hunger for the light.” ― Victor Hugo

62. “If you are stone, be magnetic; if a plant, be sensitive; but if you are human to be love.” ― Victor Hugo

63. “If you wish to understand what Revolution is, call it Progress; and if you wish to understand what Progress is, call it Tomorrow.” ― Victor Hugo

64. “It is nothing to die. It is frightful not to live.” ― Victor Hugo

65. “It was all over with him. Marius loved a woman. His destiny was entering upon the unknown. ” ― Victor Hugo

66. “Laughter is sunshine, it chases winter from the human face.” ― Victor Hugo

67. “Let us fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices are the real murderers. The great dangers lie within ourselves.” ― Victor Hugo

68. “Let us sacrifice one day to gain perhaps a whole life.” ― Victor Hugo

69. “Let us study things that are no more. It is necessary to understand them, if only to avoid them.” ― Victor Hugo

70. “Life is a theatre set in which there are but few practicable entrances.” ― Victor Hugo

71. “Life’s great happiness is to be convinced we are loved.” ― Victor Hugo

72. “Look down and show some mercy if you can. Look down, look down, upon your fellow man.” ― Victor Hugo

73. “Love is the foolishness of men, and the wisdom of God.” ― Victor Hugo

74. “Love is the only future God offers.” ― Victor Hugo

75. “Love partakes of the soul itself. it is of the same nature. like it, it is a divine spark, like it, it is incorruptible, indivisible, imperishable, it is the point of fire which is within us, which is immortal and infinite, which nothing can limit and nothing can extinguish.” ― Victor Hugo

76. “Loving is almost a substitute for thinking. Love is a burning forgetfulness of all other things. How shall we ask passion to be logical?” ― Victor Hugo

77. “Mankind is not a circle with a single center but an ellipse with two focal points of which facts are one and ideas the other.” ― Victor Hugo

78. “No army can stop an idea whose time has come.” ― Victor Hugo

79. “Nobody knows like a woman how to say things that are both sweet and profound. Sweetness and depth, this is all of the women; this is Heaven.” ― Victor Hugo

80. “Nobody loves the light like the blind man.” ― Victor Hugo

81. “People overwhelmed with trouble do not look behind; they know only too well that misfortune follows them.” ― Victor Hugo

82. “Protect the workers, encourage the rich.” ― Victor Hugo

83. “Success is a very hideous thing. Its false resemblance to merit deceives men.” ― Victor Hugo

84. “The arms of mothers are made of tenderness; in them, children sleep profoundly.” ― Victor Hugo

85. “The earth is a great piece of stupidity.” ― Victor Hugo

86. “The future has several names. For the weak, it is impossible; for the fainthearted, it is unknown; but for the valiant, it is ideal.” ― Victor Hugo

87. “The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.” ― Victor Hugo

88. “The quantity of civilization is measured by the quality of imagination.” ― Victor Hugo

89. “The soul helps the body, and at certain moments raises it. It is the only bird that sustains its cage.” ― Victor Hugo

90. “The soul in the darkness sins, but the real sinner is he who caused the darkness.” ― Victor Hugo

91. “The straight line, a respectable optical illusion which ruins many a man.” ― Victor Hugo

92. “The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves—say rather, loved in spite of ourselves.” ― Victor Hugo

93. “Then live your life, above all things. Make use of your I while you have it.” ― Victor Hugo

94. “There are instincts which respond to all the chance meetings in life. The little girl was not afraid.” ― Victor Hugo

95. “There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.” ― Victor Hugo

96. “To love and be loved, that is the miracle of youth.” ― Victor Hugo

97. “To love another person is to see the face of God.” ― Victor Hugo

98. “To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.” ― Victor Hugo

99. “What Is Love? I have met in the streets a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul.” ― Victor Hugo

100. “When two mouths, made sacred by love, draw near to each other to create, it is impossible, that above that ineffable kiss there should not be a thrill in the immense mystery of the stars.” ― Victor Hugo

101. “You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love, is to live by it.” ― Victor Hugo

102. “A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labor and there is an invisible labor.” ― Victor Hugo

103. “A smile is the same as sunshine; it banishes winter from the human countenance.” ― Victor Hugo

104. “Daring is the price of progress. All splendid conquests are the prize of boldness, more or less.” ― Victor Hugo

105. “Diamonds are found only in the dark places of the earth; truths are found only in the depths of thought.” ― Victor Hugo

I hope you liked the above Victor Hugo Quotes. Don’t forget to mention the best line that you liked most from the above lines in the comment box below.

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