Victor Hugo
One sees qualities at a distance and defects at close range.
We see past time in a telescope and present time in a microscope. Hence the apparent enormities of the present.
Nothing else in the world... not all the armies... is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
Puns are the droppings of soaring wits.
There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees.
There are fathers who do not love their children; there is no grandfather who does not adore his grandson.
The most powerful symptom of love is a tenderness which becomes at times almost insupportable.
Style is the substance of the subject called unceasingly to the surface.
As the purse is emptied, the heart is filled.
The flesh is the surface of the unknown.
Stupidity talks, vanity acts.
No one can keep a secret better than a child.
To contemplate is to look at shadows.
Pain is as diverse as man. One suffers as one can.
A society that admits misery, a humanity that admits war, seem to me an inferior society and a debased humanity; it is a higher society and a more elevated humanity at which I am aiming - a society without kings, a humanity without barriers.
I love all men who think, even those who think otherwise than myself.
Blessed be Providence which has given to each his toy: the doll to the child, the child to the woman, the woman to the man, the man to the devil!
He who is not capable of enduring poverty is not capable of being free.
A poet who is a bad man is a degraded being, baser and more culpable than a bad man who is not a poet.
The learned man knows that he is ignorant.
I am a soul. I know well that what I shall render up to the grave is not myself. That which is myself will go elsewhere. Earth, thou art not my abyss!
Nature has made a pebble and a female. The lapidary makes the diamond, and the lover makes the woman.
Love, in the eyes of the world, is either a carnal appetite or a vague fancy, which possession extinguishes or absence destroys. That is why it is commonly said, with a strange abuse of words, that passion does not endure.
The wise man does not grow old, but ripens.
But when ill indeed, Even dismissing the doctor don't always succeed.
I put a Phrygian cap on the old dictionary.
Amnesty is as good for those who give it as for those who receive it. It has the admirable quality of bestowing mercy on both sides.
The animal is ignorant of the fact that he knows. The man is aware of the fact that he is ignorant.
Genius is a promontory jutting out into the infinite.
What a grand thing, to be loved! What a grander thing still, to love!
Our mind is enriched by what we receive, our heart by what we give.Collection: Heart
The great acts of love are done by those who are habitually performing small acts of kindness.Collection: Inspirational
Don't educate your children to be rich. Educate them to be happy, so they know the value of things, not the price.Collection: Children
Between the government which does evil and the people who accept it - there is a certain shameful solidarity.Collection: Government
Go out in the world and work like money doesn't matter, sing as if no one is listening, love as if you have never been hurt, and dance as if no one is watching.Collection: Hurt
Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.Collection: Love
The future has several names. For the weak, it is impossible; for the fainthearted, it is unknown; but for the valiant, it is ideal.Collection: Positive
If you are stone, be magnetic; if a plant, be sensitive; but if you are human be love.Collection: Stones
I think, therefore I doubt.Collection: Thinking
Let us fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices are the real murderers. The great dangers lie within ourselves.Collection: Real
If you don't build castles in the air you won't build anything on the ground.Collection: Air
To know, to think, to dream. That is everything.Collection: Dream
Being good is easy, what is difficult is being just.Collection: Fairness
No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.Collection: Inspirational
To put everything in balance is good, to put everything in harmony is better.Collection: Wisdom
Every man is a book in which God himself writes.Collection: Book
God has made the cat to give man the pleasure of caressing the tiger.Collection: Cat
Not being heard is no reason for silence.Collection: Inspiring
In joined hands there is still some token of hope, in the clenched fist none.Collection: Hands