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Absence
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Separated lovers cheat absence by a thousand fancies which have their own reality. They are prevented from seeing one another and they cannot write; nevertheless they find countless mysterious ways of corresponding, by sending each other the song of birds, the scent of flowers, the laughter of children, the light of the sun, the sighing of the wind, and the gleam of the stars --all the beauties of creation.
-Victor Hugo
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Action(s)
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Initiative is doing the right thing without being told.
-Victor Hugo
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Our acts make or mar us, we are the children of our own deeds.
-Victor Hugo
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Adversity
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Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.
-Victor Hugo
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Age
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When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age.
-Victor Hugo
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Forty is the old age of youth, fifty is the youth of old age.
-Victor Hugo
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Animals
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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
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From the oyster to the eagle, from the swine to the tiger, all animals are to be found in men and each of them exists in some man, sometimes several at the time. Animals are nothing but the portrayal of our virtues and vices made manifest to our eyes, the visible reflections of our souls. God displays them to us to give us food for thought.
-Victor Hugo
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Argument & Debate
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Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause.
-Victor Hugo
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Belief
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Loving is half of believing.
-Victor Hugo
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Bravery
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Have courage for the great sorrows of life, and patience for the small ones. When you have laboriously accomplished your daily tasks, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.
-Victor Hugo
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There are obstinate and unknown braves who defend themselves inch by inch in the shadows against the fatal invasion of want and turpitude. There are noble and mysterious triumphs which no eye sees. No renown rewards, and no flourish of trumpets salutes. Life, misfortune, isolation, abandonment, and poverty and battlefields which have their heroes.
-Victor Hugo
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Charity
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As the purse is emptied, the heart is filled.
-Victor Hugo
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Common Sense
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Common sense is in spite of, not as the result of education.
-Victor Hugo
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Confidence
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Be like the bird who, halting in his flight on a limb too slight, yet sings, knowing he has wings.
-Victor Hugo
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Conversation
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There is no more sovereign eloquence than the truth in indignation.
-Victor Hugo
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Criticism
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I'd rather be hissed at for a good verse, than applauded for a bad one.
-Victor Hugo
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Crying
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He does not weep who does not see.
-Victor Hugo
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Curiosity
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Curiosity is one of the forms of feminine bravery.
-Victor Hugo
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Danger
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Great perils have this beauty, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers.
-Victor Hugo
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Death
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Death belongs to God alone. By what right do men touch that unknown thing?
-Victor Hugo
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Debt / Borrow / Loan
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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
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Decisions
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What are the convulsions of a city in comparison with the insurrections of the soul? Man is a depth still greater than the people. Jean Valjean at that very moment was the prey of a terrible upheaval. Every sort of gulf had opened again within him. He also was trembling, like Paris, on the brink of an obscure and formidable revolution. A few hours had sufficed to bring this about. His destiny and his conscience had suddenly been covered with gloom. Of him also, as well as of Paris, it might have been said: Two principles are face to face. The white angel and the black angel are about to seize each other on the bridge of the abyss. Which of the two will hurl the other over? Who will carry the day?
-Victor Hugo, Les Miserables (Vol. IV. Book Fifteenth)
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Depression
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There exists, at the bottom of all abasement and misfortune, a last extreme which rebels and joins battle with the forces of law and respectability in a desperate struggle, waged partly by cunning and partly by violence, at once sick and ferocious, in which it attacks the prevailing social order with the pin-pricks of vice and the hammer-blows of crime.
-Victor Hugo
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Difficulty
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In each age men of genius undertake the ascent. From below, the world follows them with their eyes. These men go up the mountain, enter the clouds, disappear, reappear, People watch them, mark them. They walk by the side of precipices. They daringly pursue their road. See them aloft, see them in the distance; they are but black specks. On they go. The road is uneven, its difficulties constant. At each step a wall, at each step a trap. As they rise the cold increases. They must make their ladder, cut the ice and walk on it., hewing the steps in haste. A storm is raging. Nevertheless they go forward in their madness. The air becomes difficult to breath. The abyss yawns below them. Some fall. Others stop and retrace their steps; there is a sad weariness. The bold ones continue. They are eyed by the eagles; the lightning plays about them: the hurricane is furious. No matter, they persevere.
-Victor Hugo
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Books by and about Victor Hugo