Victor Hugo Quotes - Page 5

There is neither a foreign war nor a civil war; there is only just and unjust war.

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

Let us show that, if the people abandon the republicans, the republicans do not abandon the people.

Civil war? What does that mean? Is there any foreign war? Isn't every war fought between men, between brothers?

His judgement demonstrates that one can be a genius and understand nothing of an art that is not one's own.

Let us study things that are no more. It is necessary to understand them, if only to avoid them.

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.

What is history? An echo of the past in the future; a reflex from the future on the past.

Phoebus de Chateaupers likewise came to a 'tragic end': he married.

Do not economize on the hymeneal rites; do not prune them of their splendor, nor split farthings on the day when you are radiant. A wedding is not house-keeping.

Ladies, a second piece of advice-do not marry; marriage is a graft; it may take hold or not. Shun the risk.

That you are happy, that Monsieur Pontmercy has Cosette, that youth espouses mourning, that there are about you, my children, lilacs and nightingales, that your life is a beautiful lawn in the sunshine, that all the enchantments of heaven fill your souls, and now, that I who am good for nothing, that I die; surely all this is well.

He left her. She was dissatisfied with him. He had preferred to incur her anger rather than cause her pain. He had kept all the pain for himself.

You always have everything better than the rest, even pain.

The soul that loves and suffers is in the sublime state.

At the side of Enjolras, who represented the logic of revolution, was Combeferre, representing its philosophy. The difference between logic and philosophy is that one can decide upon war, whereas the other can only be fulfilled by peace.

There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.

L'homme n'est pas un cercle à un seul centre ; c'est une ellipse à deux foyers. Les faits sont l'un, les idées sont l'autre.

I advance in life, I grow more simple, and I become more and more patriotic for humanity.

I repeat, whether we be Italians or Frenchmen, misery concerns us all.