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Complete Works of Victor Hugo QUOTES

Complete Works of Victor Hugo QUOTES

1 " Well,” said he, “what are you thinking of?” “I am thinking,” said I, “that I shall be past thinking, this evening.” “Oh, that’s it,” returned he. “Come, come, you are too sad. Mr. Castaing conversed on the day of his execution.” Then, after a pause, he continued: “I accompanied Mr. Papavoine on his last day. He wore his otter-skin cap, and smoked his cigar. As for the young men of La Rochelle, they only spoke among themselves, but still they spoke. As for you, I really think you are too pensive, young man.” “Young man?” I repeated. “I am older than you; every quarter of an hour which passes makes me a year older.” He turned round, looked at me some minutes with stupid astonishment, and then began to titter. “Come, you are joking; older than I am? why, I might be your grandfather. "

― Victor Hugo , Complete Works of Victor Hugo

2 " Style is the form of the ideal; rhythm is its movement. "

― Victor Hugo , Complete Works of Victor Hugo

3 " what is there left to desire beyond it? A little garden in which to walk, and immensity in which to dream. At one's feet that which can be cultivated and plucked; over head that which one can study and meditate upon: some flowers on earth, and all the stars in the sky. "

― Victor Hugo , Complete Works of Victor Hugo

4 " There are birds in the clouds, just as there are angels above human distresses; but what can they do for him? They sing and fly and float, and he, he rattles in the death agony. "

― Victor Hugo , Complete Works of Victor Hugo

5 " Biassou raised his hand, and as if by enchantment the tumult was stilled, and each negro returned to his place in the ranks in silence. The discipline which Biassou had imposed upon his equals by the exercise of his power of will struck me, I may say, with admiration. All the soldiers of the force seemed to exist only to obey the wishes of their chief, as the notes of the harpsichord under the fingers of the musician. "

― Victor Hugo , Complete Works of Victor Hugo

6 " He was not tall; he was rather plump; and, in order to combat this tendency, he was fond of taking long strolls on foot; his step was firm, and his form was but slightly bent, a detail from which we do not pretend to draw any conclusion. Gregory XVI., at the age of eighty, held himself erect and smiling, which did not prevent him from being a bad bishop. "

― Victor Hugo , Complete Works of Victor Hugo

7 " From his very first steps among men, he had felt himself, later on he had seen himself, spewed out, blasted, rejected. Human words were, for him, always a raillery or a malediction. As he grew up, he had found nothing but hatred around him. He had caught the general malevolence. He had picked up the weapon with which he had been wounded. "

― Victor Hugo , Complete Works of Victor Hugo

8 " BOOK SECOND—THE FALL "

― Victor Hugo , Complete Works of Victor Hugo

9 " How often it happens, that, when a catastrophe occurs, if we inquire into the cause we find it originated through the obstinacy of one with little ability, but having full faith in his own powers. "

― Victor Hugo , Complete Works of Victor Hugo

10 " and the old member of the Convention inspired him, without his being clearly conscious of the fact himself, with that sentiment which borders on hate, and which is so well expressed by the word estrangement. "

― Victor Hugo , Complete Works of Victor Hugo

11 " of all scaffolds, the political one is the most abominable, the most fatal, the most mischievous, the most necessary to extirpate. "

― Victor Hugo , Complete Works of Victor Hugo

12 " Here I must add that, in each social crisis, of all scaffolds, the political one is the most abominable, the most fatal, the most mischievous, the most necessary to extirpate. In revolutionary times, beware of the first head that falls. It excites the sanguinary appetite of the mob. "

― Victor Hugo , Complete Works of Victor Hugo

13 " To such an extent was this disease that for those who know that Quasimodo has existed, Notre-Dame is to-day deserted, inanimate, dead. One feels that something has disappeared from it. That immense body is empty; it is a skeleton; the spirit has quitted it, one sees its place and that is all. It is like a skull which still has holes for the eyes, but no longer sight. "

― Victor Hugo , Complete Works of Victor Hugo

14 " Me acuerdo de haber leído en cierto libro que todos los hombres están condenados a muerte a plazos indefinidos. "

― Victor Hugo , Complete Works of Victor Hugo

15 " total of three hundred sixty-five chapters). Each "

― Victor Hugo , Complete Works of Victor Hugo

16 " Claude, saddened and discouraged in his human affections, by all this, had flung himself eagerly into the arms of learning, that sister which, at least does not laugh in your face, and which always pays you, though in money that is sometimes a little hollow, for the attention which you have paid to her. "

― Victor Hugo , Complete Works of Victor Hugo

17 " As Claude Frollo had passed through nearly the entire circle of human learning—positive, exterior, and permissible—since his youth, he was obliged, unless he came to a halt, ubi defuit orbis, to proceed further and seek other aliments for the insatiable activity of his intelligence. The antique symbol of the serpent biting its tail is, above all, applicable to science. "

― Victor Hugo , Complete Works of Victor Hugo

18 " In the early ages, the social edifice rested on three columns, the priest, the king and the headsman. It is a long time since a voice exclaimed, “The gods have departed!” Lately another voice has cried, “The kings have departed!” It is now full time that a third voice shall be raised to say, “The executioner must go! "

― Victor Hugo , Complete Works of Victor Hugo

19 " the old man turned his head, and his face expressed the sum total of the surprise which a man can still feel after a long life. "

― Victor Hugo , Complete Works of Victor Hugo

20 " We shall look on crime as a disease, and its physicians shall displace the judges, its hospitals displace the galleys. Liberty and health shall be alike. We shall pour balm and oil where we formerly applied iron and fire; evil will be treated in charity, instead of in anger. This change will be simple and sublime. "

― Victor Hugo , Complete Works of Victor Hugo