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
History has its truth, and so has legend. Legendary truth is of another nature than historical truth. Legendary truth is invention whose result is reality. Furthermore, history and legend have the same goal; to depict eternal man beneath momentary man.
We say and exclaim within ourselves without breaking silence, in a tumult where everything speaks except our mouths. The realities of the soul are none the less real for being invisible and impalpable.
It is ourselves we have to fear. Prejudice is the real robber, and vice the real murderer.
He reached for his pocket, and found there, only reality
Reality in strong doses frightens.
Homer is one of the men of genius who solve that fine problem of art - the finest of all, perhaps - truly to depict humanity by the enlargement of man: that is, to generate the real in the ideal.
As we have explained, in first love the soul is taken long before the body; later the body is taken long before the soul; sometimes the soul is not taken at all.
I wanted to see you again, touch you, know who you were, see if I would find you identical with the ideal image of you which had remained with me and perhaps shatter my dream with the aid of reality. -Claude Frollo
Let us fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices are the real murderers. The great dangers lie within ourselves.
Every day has its great grief or its small anxiety. ... One cloud is dispelled, another forms. There is hardly one day in a hundred of real joy and bright sunshine.
Have no fear of robbers or murderers. They are external dangers, petty dangers. We should fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices the real murderers. The great dangers are within us. Why worry about what threatens our heads or our purses? Let us think instead of what threatens our souls.
The soul in the darkness sins, but the real sinner is he who caused the darkness.
We must never fear robbers or murderers. They are dangers from outside, small dangers. It is ourselves we have to fear. Prejudice is the real robber, vice the real murderer. Why should we be troubled by a threat to our person or our pocket? What we have to beware of is the threat to our souls'.
The real, native South Seas food is lousy. You can't eat it.