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
Let us study things that are no more. It is necessary to understand them, if only to avoid them.
If suffer we must, let's suffer on the heights.
England has two books, the Bible and Shakespeare. England made Shakespeare,but the Bible made England.
Short as life is, we make it still shorter by the careless waste of time.
Never laugh at those who suffer; suffer sometimes those who laugh.
...Human thought has no limit. At its risk and peril, it analyzes and dissects its own fascination. We could almost say that, by a sort of splendid reaction, it fascinates nature; the mysterious world surrounding us returns what it receives; it is likely that contemplators are contemplated.
Let us sacrifice one day to gain perhaps a whole life.
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.
Son, brother, father, lover, friend. There is room in the heart for all the affections, as there is room in heaven for all the stars.
Perseverance, secret of all triumphs.
It is from books that wise people derive consolation in the troubles of life.
I exist," murmurs someone whose name is Everyone. "I'm young and in love; I am old and I want rest; I work, I prosper, I do good business, I have houses to rent, money in State Securities; I am happy, I have wife and children; I like all these things and I want to go on living, so leave me alone."... There are moments when all this casts a deep chill on the large-minded pioneers of the human race.
Love has no middle term; either it destroys, or it saves. All human destiny is this dilemma. This dilemma, destruction or salvation, no fate proposes more inexorably than love. Love is life, if it is not death. Cradle; coffin, too. The same sentiment says yes and no in the human heart. Of all the things God has made, the human heart is the one that sheds most light, and alas! most night.
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.