Victor Hugo

A library implies an act of faith which generations, still in darkness hid, sign in their night in witness of the dawn.

True thinkers are characterized by a blending of clearness and mystery.

He who is not master of his own thoughts is not accountable for his own deeds.

Knowledge is a weight added to conscience.

Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats.

Vengeance comes from the individual and punishment from God.

We should judge a man much more surely from what he dreams than from what he thinks.

I only take a half share in the civil war; I am willing to die, I am not willing to kill.

A day will come when there will be no battlefields, but markets opening to commerce and minds opening to ideas.

On this point, the priest and the philosopher agree: We must die.

He had slipped, climbed, rolled, searched, walked, persevered, that is all. Such is the secret of all triumphs.

What is the cat?" he exclaimed. "It is a corrective. God, having made the mouse, said, 'I've made a blunder.' And he made the cat. The cat is the erratum of the mouse. The mouse, plus the cat, Is the revised and corrected proof of creation.

Genius: the superhuman in man.

Love is like a tree, it grows of its own accord, it puts down deep roots into our whole being.

Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars.

If you look in the eyes of the young, you see flame. If you look in the eyes of the old, you see light.

Dear God! how beauty varies in nature and art.

The heart becomes heroic through passion. It is no longer composed of anything but what is pure; it no longer rests upon anything but what is elevated and great.

You say, "Where goest Thou?" I cannot tell, And still go on. But if the way be straight I cannot go amiss: before me lies Dawn and the day: the night behind me: that Suffices me: I break the bounds: I see, And nothing more; believe and nothing less. My future is not one of my concerns.

He is the best gentleman that is the son of his own deserts, and not the degenerated heir of another's virtue.

Revolution is the larva of civilization.