Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor Marie Hugo; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French poet, novelist, and dramatist of the Romantic movement. He is considered one of the greatest and best-known French writers. In France, Hugo's literary fame comes first from his poetry and then from his novels and his dramatic achievements. Among many volumes of poetry, Les Contemplations and La Légende des siècles stand particularly high in critical esteem. Outside France, his best-known works are the novels Les Misérables, 1862,...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth26 February 1802
CityBesancon, France
CountryFrance
We need those who pray constantly to compensate for those who do not pray at all.
To love or have loved is all-sufficing. We must not ask for more. No other pearl is to be found in the shadowfolds of life. To love is an accomplishment.
...there is a point when the unfortunate and the infamous are associated and confused in a word, a mortal word, les miserables
And so, being in Heaven, it was easy for him to lose sight of earth.
Spira, spera. (breathe, hope)
Ma vie est une énigme dont ton nom est le mot. (My life is an enigma, of which your name is the word.)
She might have melted a heart of stone, but nothing can melt a heart of wood.
Do not forget, do not ever forget, that you have promised me to use the money to make yourself an honest man.' Valjean, who did not recall having made any promise, was silent. The bishop had spoken the words slowly and deliberately. He concluded with a solemn emphasis: Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to what is evil but to what is good. I have bought your soul to save it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God.
Every good quality runs into a defect; economy borders on avarice, the generous are not far from the prodigal, the brave man is close to the bully; he who is very pious is slightly sanctimonious; there are just as many vices to virtue as there are holes in the mantle of Diogenes.
Diamonds are to be found only in the darkness of the earth, and truth in the darkness of the mind.
Can human nature ever be wholly and radically transformed? Can the man whom God made good be made wicked by man? Can the soul be reshaped in its entirety by destiny and made evil because destiny is evil? Can the heart become misshapen and afflicted with ugly, incurable deformities under disproportionate misfortune, like a spinal column bent beneath a too low roof?
But I have been exposed, I am pursued - by myself! That is a pursuit that does not readily let go.
Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions
Table talk and Lovers' talk equally elude the grasp; Lovers' Talk is clouds, Table Talk is smoke." Les Miserables