110+ Victor Hugo Quotes On Death, Music And Paris

Victor Hugo was a French poet, novelist, and dramatist who is considered one of the greatest and best-known French writers. He is known for works such as Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He was a leader of the Romantic literary movement in France and is often considered the greatest French poet. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Victor Hugo on love, death, life.

Top 10 Victor Hugo Quotes

1. The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.
2. To love beauty is to see light.
3. Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.
4. An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise.
5. The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.
6. There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.
7. The future has several names. For the weak, it is impossible; for the fainthearted, it is unknown; but for the valiant, it is ideal.
8. 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.
9. Go out in the world and work like money doesn't matter, sing as if no one is listening, love as if you have never been hurt, and dance as if no one is watching.
10. Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.

Victor Hugo Image Quotes

An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise. — Victor Hugo

There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. — Victor Hugo

Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise. — Victor Hugo

There is nothing like a dream to create the future. — Victor Hugo

When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right. — Victor Hugo

Music expresses that which cannot be put into words. — Victor Hugo

He who opens a school door, closes a prison. — Victor Hugo

A mother's arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them. — Victor Hugo

Everything being a constant carnival, there is no carnival left. — Victor Hugo

The man who fights against his own country is never a hero. — Victor Hugo

Imagination is intelligence with an erection. — Victor Hugo

The wicked envy and hate; it is their way of admiring. — Victor Hugo

A bit of mould is a pleiad of flowers; a nebula is an ant-hill of stars. — Victor Hugo

Initiative is doing the right thing without being told. — Victor Hugo

Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face. — Victor Hugo

Perseverance, secret of all triumphs. — Victor Hugo

A faith is a necessity to a man. Woe to him who believes in nothing. — Victor Hugo

He who is not capable of enduring poverty is not capable of being free. — Victor Hugo

Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters. — Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo Short Quotes

• There is nothing like a dream to create the future.
• When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right.
• He who opens a school door, closes a prison.
• A mother's arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them.
• Everything being a constant carnival, there is no carnival left.
• The man who fights against his own country is never a hero.
• When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age.
• Imagination is intelligence with an erection.
• There is one spectacle grander than the sea, That is the sky.
• The last resort of kings, the cannonball. The last resort of the people, the paving stone.

Victor Hugo Quotes About Love

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

Love is like a tree, it grows of its own accord, it puts down deep roots into our whole being. — Victor Hugo

Try as you will, you cannot annihilate that eternal relic of the human heart, love. — Victor Hugo

Life's greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved. — Victor Hugo

Love each other dearly always. There is scarcely anything else in the world but that: to love one another. — Victor Hugo

What a grand thing, to be loved! What a grander thing still, to love! — Victor Hugo

Look not at the face, young girl, look at the heart. The heart of a handsome young man is often deformed. There are hearts in which love does not keep. Young girl, the pine is not beautiful; it is not beautiful like the poplar, but it keeps its foliage in winter. — Victor Hugo

Life is a flower of which love is the honey. — Victor Hugo

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

In joined hands there is still some token of hope, in the clenched fist none. — Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo Quotes About Death

My day's work will begin again the next morning. The tomb is not a blind alley. — Victor Hugo

Death belongs to God alone. By what right do men touch that unknown thing? — Victor Hugo

Our life dreams the Utopia. Our death achieves the Ideal. — Victor Hugo

I didn't believe it could be so monstrous. It's wrong to be so absorbed in divine law as not to perceive human law. Death belongs to God alone. By what right do men tough that unknown thing? — Victor Hugo

A few feet under the ground reigns so profound a silence, and yet so much tumult on the surface! — Victor Hugo

We are all under sentence of death, but with a sort of indefinite reprieve. — Victor Hugo

It seems as though, at the approach of a certain dark hour, the light of heaven infills those who are leaving the light of earth. — Victor Hugo

Death has its revelations: the great sorrows which open the heart open the mind as well; light comes to us with our grief. As for me, I have faith; I believe in a future life. How could I do otherwise? My daughter was a soul; I saw this soul. I touched it, so to speak. — Victor Hugo

Woe, alas, to those who have loved only bodies, forms, appearances! Death will rob them of everything. Try to love souls, you will find them again. — Victor Hugo

In every cradle decked with rosy wreath Lurk germs of death. — Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo Quotes About Life

Music expresses that which cannot be put into words. — Victor Hugo

Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet. — Victor Hugo

Man's greatest actions are performed in minor struggles. Life, misfortune, isolation, abandonment and poverty are battlefields which have their heroes - obscure heroes who are at times greater than illustrious heroes. — Victor Hugo

I had a dream my life would be different from this hell I am living, so different from what it seemed. Now life has killed the dream I dreamed. — Victor Hugo

Short as life is, we make it still shorter by the careless waste of time. — Victor Hugo

Concision in style, precision in thought, decision in life. — Victor Hugo

What's our baggage? Only vows, Happiness, and all our care, And the flower that sweetly shows Nestling lightly in your hair. — Victor Hugo

To die is nothing; but it is terrible not to live. — Victor Hugo

Ma vie est une énigme dont ton nom est le mot. (My life is an enigma, of which your name is the word.) — Victor Hugo

The supreme happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved. — Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo Quotes About Music

Music expresses that which cannot remain silent and that which cannot be put into words. — Victor Hugo

Music expresses that which can not be said and on which it is impossible to be silent — Victor Hugo

Nature is pitiless; she never withdraws her flowers, her music, her fragrance, and her sunlight from before human cruelty or suffering. — Victor Hugo

Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent — Victor Hugo

Music is the vapor of art. It is to poetry what reverie is to thought, what fluid is to solid, what the ocean of clouds is to the ocean of waves. — Victor Hugo

Do you hear the people sing Lost in the valley of the night? It is the music of a people Who are climbing to the light. For the wretched of the earth There is a flame that never dies. Even the darkest night will end And the sun will rise. — Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo Quotes About Paris

To err is human. To loaf is Parisian. — Victor Hugo

He who contemplates the depths of Paris is seized with vertigo. Nothing is more fantastic. Nothing is more tragic. Nothing is more sublime. — Victor Hugo

Paris is a sum total. Paris is the ceiling of the human race. All this prodigious city is an epitome of dead and living manners and customs. He who sees Paris, seems to see all history through with the sky and constellations in the intervals. — Victor Hugo

To rove about, musing, that is to say loitering, is, for a philosopher, a good way of spending time, especially in that kind of mock rurality, ugly but odd, and partaking of two natures, which surrounds certain large cities, particularly Paris. — Victor Hugo

To study in Paris is to be born in Paris! — Victor Hugo

If a man has his throat cut in Paris, it's a murder. If 50,000 people are murdered in the east, it is a question. — Victor Hugo

To breathe Paris is to preserve one's soul. — Victor Hugo

A breath of Paris preserves the soul. — Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo Quotes About Books

England has two books, the Bible and Shakespeare. England made Shakespeare,but the Bible made England. — Victor Hugo

He never went out without a book under his arm, and he often came back with two. — Victor Hugo

It is from books that wise people derive consolation in the troubles of life. — Victor Hugo

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

Architecture has recorded the great ideas of the human race. Not only every religious symbol, but every human thought has its page in that vast book. — Victor Hugo

It is those books which a man possesses but does not read which constitute the most suspicious evidence against him. — Victor Hugo

Every man is a book in which God himself writes. — Victor Hugo

So long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Miserables cannot fail to be of use. — Victor Hugo

He loved books; books are cold but safe friends. — Victor Hugo

He was fond of books, for they are cool and sure friends — Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo Quotes About Soul

Teach the ignorant as much as you can; society is culpable in not providing a free education for all and it must answer for the night which it produces. If the soul is left in darkness sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness. — Victor Hugo

The human soul has still greater need of the ideal than of the real. It is by the real that we exist; it is by the ideal that we live. — Victor Hugo

Nations, like stars, are entitled to eclipse. All is well, provided the light returns and the eclipse does not become endless night. Dawn and resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is the same as the survival of the soul. — Victor Hugo

Forget not, never forget that you have promised me to use this silver to become an honest man.... Jean Valjean, my brother: you belong no longer to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I am buying for you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God! — Victor Hugo

It seemed to be a necessary ritual that he should prepare himself for sleep by meditating under the solemnity of the night sky... a mysterious transaction between the infinity of the soul and the infinity of the universe. — Victor Hugo

The production of souls is the secret of unfathomable depth. — Victor Hugo

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

The pupil dilates in darkness and in the end finds light, just as the soul dilates in misfortune and in the end finds God. — Victor Hugo

There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees. — Victor Hugo

Wisdom is the health of the soul. — Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo Quotes About Light

To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark. — Victor Hugo

What makes night within us may leave stars. — Victor Hugo

Great perils have this beauty, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers. — Victor Hugo

The memory of an absent person shines in the deepest recesses of the heart, shining the more brightly the more wholly its object has vanished: a light on the horizon of the despairing, darkened spirit; a star gleaming in our inward night. — Victor Hugo

If you look in the eyes of the young, you see flame. If you look in the eyes of the old, you see light. — Victor Hugo

Labor is life; thought is light. — Victor Hugo

It is the essence of truth that it is never excessive.... We must not resort to the flame where only light is required. — Victor Hugo

In winter there is no heat, no light, no noon, evening touches morning, there is fog, and mist, the window is frosted, and you cannot see clearly. The sky is but the mouth of a cave. The whole day is the cave.... Frightful season! Winter changes into stone the water of heaven and the heart of man. — Victor Hugo

O darkness, the sky is a gloomy precinct Whose door you close, and whose key the soul owns; And night divides itself in half, being diabolical and holy, Between Ilis, the black angel, and Christ, the starry Human Being. — Victor Hugo

To learn to read is to light a fire. — Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo Quotes About Idea

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

One can resist the invasion of an army but one cannot resist the invasion of ideas. — Victor Hugo

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

All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come. — Victor Hugo

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

Greater than the tread of mighty armies is an idea whose time has come. — Victor Hugo

The man who does not know other languages, unless he is a man of genius, necessarily has deficiencies in his ideas. — Victor Hugo

One can no more keep the mind from returning to an idea than the sea from returning to a shore. For a sailor, this is called the tide; in the case of the guilty it is called remorse. God stirs up the soul as well as the ocean. — Victor Hugo

There comes an hour when protest no longer suffices; after philosophy there must be action; the strong hand finishes what the idea has sketched. — Victor Hugo

The ideal and the beautiful are identical; the ideal corresponds to the idea, and beauty to form; hence idea and substance are cognate. — Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo Famous Quotes And Sayings

An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise. — Victor Hugo

There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. — Victor Hugo

Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise. — Victor Hugo

When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right. — Victor Hugo

Music expresses that which cannot be put into words. — Victor Hugo

All roads are blocked to a philosophy which reduces everything to the word "no." To "no" there is only one answer and that is "yes." Nihilism has no substance. There is no such thing as nothingness, and zero does not exist. Everything is something. Nothing is nothing. Man lives more by affirmation than by bread. — Victor Hugo

He who opens a school door, closes a prison. — Victor Hugo

A mother's arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them. — Victor Hugo

Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart; I breathe at this hour the fragrance of the lilacs, the violets, and the roses, as at twenty years ago. — Victor Hugo

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

Everything being a constant carnival, there is no carnival left. — Victor Hugo

The man who fights against his own country is never a hero. — Victor Hugo

Imagination is intelligence with an erection. — Victor Hugo

The wicked envy and hate; it is their way of admiring. — Victor Hugo

A bit of mould is a pleiad of flowers; a nebula is an ant-hill of stars. — Victor Hugo

We say that slavery has vanished from European civilization, but this is not true. Slavery still exists, but now it applies only to women and its name is prostitution. — Victor Hugo

Initiative is doing the right thing without being told. — Victor Hugo

Nihilism has no substance. There is no such thing as nothingness, and zero does not exist. Everything is something. Nothing is nothing. — Victor Hugo

To give thanks in solitude is enough. Thanksgiving has wings and goes where it must go. Your prayer knows much more about it than you do. — Victor Hugo

Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face. — Victor Hugo

Perseverance, secret of all triumphs. — Victor Hugo

A faith is a necessity to a man. Woe to him who believes in nothing. — Victor Hugo

He who is not capable of enduring poverty is not capable of being free. — Victor Hugo

Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters. — Victor Hugo

To destroy abuses is not enough; Habits must also be changed. The windmill has gone, but the wind is still there." ~old man G--- to Monseigneur Bienvenu Myriel — Victor Hugo

Most commonly revolt is born of material circumstances; but insurrection is always a moral phenomenon. Revolt is Masaniello, who led the Neapolitan insurgents in 1647; but insurrection is Spartacus. Insurrection is a thing of the spirit, revolt is a thing of the stomach. — Victor Hugo

How did it happen that their lips came together? How does it happen that birds sing, that snow melts, that the rose unfolds, that the dawn whitens behind the stark shapes of trees on the quivering summit of the hill? A kiss, and all was said. — Victor Hugo

Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings. — Victor Hugo

Virtue has a veil, vice a mask. — Victor Hugo

A creditor is worse than a slave-owner; for the master owns only your person, but a creditor owns your dignity, and can command it. — Victor Hugo

The ode lives upon the ideal, the epic upon the grandiose, the drama upon the real. — Victor Hugo

People do not lack strength; they lack will. — Victor Hugo

To sum up all, let it be known that science and religion are two identical words. The learned do not suspect this, no more do the religious. These two words express the two sides of the same fact, which is the infinite. Religion-Science, this is the future of the human mind. — Victor Hugo

There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher. — Victor Hugo

Symmetry is tedious, and tedium is the very basis of mourning. Despair yawns. — Victor Hugo

Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause. — Victor Hugo

Sorrow is a fruit. God does not make it grow on limbs too weak to bear it. — Victor Hugo

The three great problems of this century; the degradation of man in the proletariat, the subjection of women through hunger, the atrophy of the child by darkness. — Victor Hugo

Toleration is the best religion. — Victor Hugo

The future has many names: For the weak, it means the unattainable. For the fearful, it means the unknown. For the courageous, it means opportunity. — Victor Hugo

Those who do not weep, do not see. — Victor Hugo

Nothing awakens reminiscence like an aroma. — Victor Hugo

Our acts make or mar us, we are the children of our own deeds. — Victor Hugo

A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labor and there is invisible labor. — Victor Hugo

Emergencies have always been necessary to progress. It was darkness which produced the lamp. It was fog that produced the compass. It was hunger that drove us to exploration. And it took a depression to teach us the real value of a job. — Victor Hugo

Religions do a useful thing: they narrow God to the limits of man. Philosophy replies by doing a necessary thing: it elevates man to the plane of God. — Victor Hugo

If I speak, I am condemned. If I stay silent, I am damned! — Victor Hugo

Thought is the labor of the intellect, reverie is its pleasure. — Victor Hugo

Civil war.... What did the words mean? Was there any such thing as "foreign war"? Was not all warfare between men warfare between brothers? — Victor Hugo

Don't educate your children to be rich. Educate them to be happy, so they know the value of things, not the price. — Victor Hugo

The sewer is the conscience of the city. — Victor Hugo

You look at a star for two reasons, because it is luminous, and because it is impenetrable. You have beside you a sweeter radiance and a greater mystery, woman. — Victor Hugo

Another story must begin! — Victor Hugo

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. — Victor Hugo

Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart. — Victor Hugo

Go to sleep in peace. God is awake. — Victor Hugo

A day will come when a cannon will be exhibited in museums, just as instruments of torture are now, and the people will be astonished that such a thing could have been. — Victor Hugo

God has made the cat to give man the pleasure of caressing the tiger. — Victor Hugo

Often the losing of a battle leads to the winning of progress. Less glory but greater liberty: the drum is silent and the voices of reason can be heard. — Victor Hugo

When a woman is talking to you, listen to what she says with her eyes. — Victor Hugo

The convent, which belongs to the West as it does to the East, to antiquity as it does to the present time, to Buddhism and Muhammadanism as it does to Christianity, is one of the optical devices whereby man gains a glimpse of infinity. — Victor Hugo

The guillotine is the ultimate expression of Law, and its name is vengeance; it is not neutral, nor does it allow us to remain neutral. — Victor Hugo

There is no distress so complete but that even in the most critical moments the inexplicable sunrise of hope is seen in its depths. — Victor Hugo

Life Lessons by Victor Hugo

1. Victor Hugo taught us to never give up on our dreams and to face our fears with courage and strength.
2. He also showed us that we can make a difference in the world by standing up for what we believe in and fighting for justice and equality.
3. Lastly, he showed us that love and compassion can be powerful forces for good, and that we should strive to be kind and understanding to those around us.