Quotes & Sayings About Love Victor Hugo

God has set his intentions in the flowers, in the dawn, in the spring, it is his will that we should love. — Victor Hugo

Love is the foolishness of men, and the wisdom of God. — Victor Hugo

He understood how to sit down and hold his peace for long hours beside the man who had lost the wife of his love, — Victor Hugo

God decreed that the love which came to Cosette was a love that saves. — Victor Hugo

The first symptom of love in a young man is shyness; the first symptom in a woman, it's boldness. — Victor Hugo

Moreover that which is called, far too harshly in certain cases, the ingratitude of children, is not always a thing so deserving of reproach as it is supposed. It is the ingratitude of nature. Nature, as we have elsewhere said, "looks before her." Nature divides living beings into those who are arriving and those who are departing. Those who are departing are turned towards the shadows, those who are arriving towards the light. Hence a gulf which is fatal on the part of the old, and involuntary on the part of the young. This breach, at first insensible, increases slowly, like all separations of branches. The boughs, without becoming detached from the trunk, grow away from it. It is no fault of theirs. Youth goes where there is joy, festivals, vivid lights, love. Old age goes towards the end. They do not lose sight of each other, but there is no longer a close connection. Young people feel the cooling off of life; old people, that of the tomb. Let us not blame these poor children. — Victor Hugo

The shock caused by the fall of a careless word displaces that against which it strikes. At times it happens, without our knowing why, that because we have received an almost imperceptible blow from a chance word, the heart insensibly empties itself of love. He who loves, perceives a decline in his happiness. There is nothing more to be dreaded than this slow exudation from the fissure in the vase. — Victor Hugo

There is no rapture in the love which is prompted by esteem; such affection is lasting, not passionate. — Victor Hugo

If no one loved, the sun would go out. — Victor Hugo

What a great thing, to be loved! What a greater thing still, to love! The heart becomes heroic though passion ... if no one loved, the sun would go out. — Victor Hugo

Love is an old invention but it is one that is always new. Make the most of it. — Victor Hugo

There are fathers who do not love their children; there is no grandfather who does not adore his grandson. — Victor Hugo

He said to himself that he really had not suffered enough to deserve such radiant happiness, and he thanked God, in the depths of his soul, for having permitted that he, a miserable man, should be so loved by this innocent being.
Jean Valjean about Cossette — Victor Hugo

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. — Victor Hugo

To a gargoyle on the ramparts of Notre Dame as Esmeralda rides off with Gringoire Quasimodo says. Why was I not made of stone like thee? — Victor Hugo

He thought her more beautiful than ever, with a beauty that was at once feminine and angelic, that wholeness of beauty that had moved Petrarch to song and brought Dante to his knees. — Victor Hugo

First I loved women, then animals, and now I love stones. They're just as amusing as women and animals and they're much less trecherous. — Victor Hugo

You are adorable, mademoiselle. I study your feet with the microscope and your soul with the telescope. — Victor Hugo

In the morning I write love letters and in the afternoon I dig graves — Victor Hugo

He had no shelter, no bread, no fire, no love; but he was merry because he was free. — Victor Hugo

The ideal is nothing but the culminating point of logic, the same as the beautiful is nothing but the summit of the true. Artistic peoples are also consistent peoples. To love beauty is to see the light. — Victor Hugo

Ah, Monsieur Priest, you love not the crudities of the true. Christ loved them. He seized a rod and cleared out the Temple. His scourge, full of lightnings, was a harsh speaker of truths. When he cried, 'Sinite parvulos,' he made no distinction between the little children. It would not have embarrassed him to bring together the Dauphin of Barabbas and the Dauphin of Herod. Innocence, Monsieur, is its own crown. Innocence has no need to be a highness. It is as august in rags as in fleurs de lys. — Victor Hugo

Cosette, in her seclusion, like Marius in his, was all ready to take fire. Destiny, with its mysterious and fatal patience, was slowly bringing these two beings near each other, fully charged and all languishing with the stormy electricities of passion, - these two souls which held love as two clouds hold lightning, and which were to meet and mingle in a glace like clouds in a flash.
The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only. The rest is only the rest, and comes afterwards. Nothing is more real than these great shocks which two souls give each other in exchanging this spark.
At that particular moment when Cosette unconsciously looked with this glance which so affected Marius, Marius had no suspicion that he also had a glance which affected Cosette. — Victor Hugo

Now for my pains, promise me-"
And she hesitated.
"What?" asked Marius.
"Promise me!"
"I promise you."
"Promise to kiss me on the forehead when I'm dead. I'll feel it."
She let her head fall back on Marius's knees and her eyelids closed. He thought the poor soul had gone. Eponine lay motionless, but just when Marius supposed her forever asleep, she slowly opened her eyes, revealing the somber depths of death, and said to him in an accent whose sweetness already seemed to come from another world, "And then, do you know, Monsieur Marius, I believe I was a little in love with you."
She tried to smile again and died. — Victor Hugo

To love or to have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. — Victor Hugo

The reduction of the universe to one single being, the expansion of one single being into God: That is what love is. — Victor Hugo

Pretty, but badly dressed," breath of an oracle which had passed by her and vanished after depositing in her heart one of the two germs which must afterwards fill the whole life of the woman, coquetry. Love is the other. — Victor Hugo

It was like a hand which had opened and thrown suddenly upon her a handful of sunbeams. — Victor Hugo

If you are stone, be magnetic; if a plant, be sensitive; but if you are human be love. — Victor Hugo

What a grand thing it is to be loved! What a far grander thing it is to love! The heart becomes heroic, by dint of passion. — Victor Hugo

Love, thine is the future. Death, I use thee, but I hate thee. Citizens, there shall be in the future neither darkness nor thunderbolts; neither ferocious ignorance nor blood for blood. — Victor Hugo

Love is like a tree: it grows by itself, roots itself deeply in our being and continues to flourish over a heart in ruin. The inexplicable fact is that the blinder it is, the more tenacious it is. It is never stronger than when it is completely unreasonable. — Victor Hugo

In love, such a word, whispered, is a mysterious kiss of the soul to the soul. — Victor Hugo

Marius and Cosette were in the dark in regard to each other. They did not speak, they did not bow, they were not acquainted; they saw each other; and, like the stars in the sky separated by millions of leagues, they lived by gazing upon each other. — Victor Hugo

If anything is horrible, if there is a reality that surpasses our worst dreams, it is this: to live, to see the sun, to be in full possession of manly vigor, to have health and joy, to laugh heartily, to rush toward a glory that lures you on, to feel lungs that breathe, a heart that beats, a mind that thinks, to speak, to hope, to love; to have mother, wife, children, to have sunlight, and suddenly, in less time than it takes to cry out, to plunge into an abyss, to fall, to roll, to crush, to be crushed, to see the heads of grain, the flowers, the leaves, the branches, unable to catch hold of anything, to feel your sword useless, men under you, horses over you, to struggle in vain, your bones broken by some kick in the darkness, to feel a heel gouging your eyes out of their sockets, raging at the horseshoe between your teeth, to stifle, to howl, to twist, to be under all this, and to say, 'Just then I was a living man! — Victor Hugo

The Ocean's Song

We walked amongst the ruins famed in story
Of Rozel-Tower,
And saw the boundless waters stretch in glory
And heave in power.

O Ocean vast! We heard thy song with wonder,
Whilst waves marked time.
"Appear, O Truth!" thou sang'st with tone of thunder,
"And shine sublime!

"The world's enslaved and hunted down by beagles,
To despots sold.
Souls of deep thinkers, soar like mighty eagles!
The Right uphold.

"Be born! arise! o'er the earth and wild waves bounding,
Peoples and suns!
Let darkness vanish; tocsins be resounding,
And flash, ye guns!

"And you who love no pomps of fog or glamour,
Who fear no shocks,
Brave foam and lightning, hurricane and clamour,--
Exiles: the rocks! — Victor Hugo

This is the shade of difference: the door
of the physician should never be shut, the door of the priest should always be open. — Victor Hugo

Happy, even in anguish, is he to whom God has given a soul worthy of love and grief! He who has not seen the things of this world, and the heart of men in this double light, has seen nothing, and knows noting of the truth. — Victor Hugo

In the morning, when he entered my room, I grumbled, but he was like the sunlight to me, all the same. One cannot defend oneself against those brats. They take hold of you, they hold you fast, they never let you go again. The truth is, that there never was a cupid like that child. — Victor Hugo

When you shall have learned to know, and to love, you will still suffer. The day is born in tears. The luminous weep, if only over those in darkness. — Victor Hugo

At that moment of love, a moment when passion is absolutely silent under omnipotence of ecstasy, Marius, pure seraphic Marius, would have been more capable of visiting a woman of the streets than of raising Cosette's dress above the ankle. Once on a moonlit night, Cosette stopped to pick up something from the ground, her dress loosened and revealed the swelling of her breasts. Marius averted his eyes. — Victor Hugo

In the future no one will kill anyone, the earth will shine, the human race will love. It will come, citizens, the day when all will be peace, harmony, light, joy, and life, it will come. And it is so that it comes that we are going to die. — Victor Hugo

God is behind everything, but everything hides God. Things are black, creatures are opaque. To love a being is to render that being transparent. — Victor Hugo

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

The reduction of the universe to a single being, the expansion of a single being even to God, this is love. — Victor Hugo

The saints were his friends, and blessed him; the monsters were his friends, and guarded him. — Victor Hugo

He plainly perceived this truth, the basis of his life henceforth, that so long as she should be alive, so long as he should have her with him, he should need nothing except for her, and fear nothing save on her account. — Victor Hugo

We may remark in passing that to be blind and beloved may, in this world where nothing is perfect, be among the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness. The supreme happiness in life is the assurance of being loved; of being loved for oneself, even in spite of oneself; and this assurance the blind man possesses. In his affliction, to be served is to be caressed. Does he lack anything? no. Possessing love he is not deprived of light. A love, moreover, that is wholly pure. There can be no blindness where there is this certainty. — Victor Hugo

Oh, to lie side by side in the same tomb, hand in hand, and to gently touch a finger-tip from time to time in the darkness, would suffice for my eternity.
You who suffer because you love, love more than ever. To die for love is to live by it. — Victor Hugo

And do you know Monsieur Marius? I believe I was a little in love with you. — Victor Hugo

Separated lovers cheat absence by a thousand fancies which have their own reality. They are prevented from seeing one another and they cannot write; nevertheless they find countless mysterious ways of corresponding, by sending each other the song of birds, the scent of flowers, the laughter of children, the light of the sun, the sighing of the wind, and the gleam of the stars -all the beauties of creation. — Victor Hugo

And there's a woman dressed in white, who's nice to hear, and soft to touch, and she whispers, 'Colette, I love you very much' I have a place where no one is ost, and where no one cries, because crying is not aloud, on my Castle In the Clouds — Victor Hugo

There are certain natures which cannot have love on one side without hatred on the other. — Victor Hugo

Oh! would that we were lying side by side in the same grave, hand in hand, and from time to time, in the darkness, gently caressing a finger
that would suffice for my eternity! — Victor Hugo

However, this sceptic had one fanaticism. This fanaticism was neither a dogma, nor an idea, nor an art, nor a science; it was a man: Enjolras. Grantaire admired, loved, and venerated Enjolras. To whom did this anarchical scoffer unite himself in this phalanx of absolute minds? To the most absolute. In what manner had Enjolras subjugated him? By his ideas? No. By his character. A phenomenon which is often observable. A sceptic who adheres to a believer is as simple as the law of complementary colors. That which we lack attracts us. No one loves the light like the blind man. The dwarf adores the drum-major. The toad always has his eyes fixed on heaven. Why? In order to watch the bird in its flight. Grantaire, in whom writhed doubt, loved to watch faith soar in Enjolras. He had need of Enjolras. That chaste, healthy, firm, upright, hard, candid nature charmed him, without his being clearly aware of it, and without the idea of explaining it to himself having occurred to him. — Victor Hugo

It was the second white apparition which he had encountered. The Bishop had caused the dawn of virtue to rise on his horizon; Cosette caused the dawn of love to rise. — Victor Hugo

The future belongs to hearts even more than it does to minds. Love, that is the only thing that can occupy and fill eternity. In the infinite, the inexhaustible is requisite.
Love participates of the soul itself. It is of the same nature. Like it, it is the divine spark; like it, it is incorruptible, indivisible, imperishable. It is a point of fire that exists within us, which is immortal and infinite, which nothing can confine, and which nothing can extinguish. We feel it burning even to the very marrow of our bones, and we see it beaming in the very depths of heaven. — Victor Hugo

Do you know what friendship is?' he asked.
'Yes,' replied the gypsy; 'it is to be brother and sister; two souls which touch without mingling, two fingers on one hand.'
'And love?' pursued Gringoire.
'Oh! love!' said she, and her voice trembled, and her eye beamed. 'That is to be two and to be but one. A man and a woman mingled into one angel. It is heaven. — Victor Hugo

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. — Victor Hugo

I have an old hat which is not worth three francs, I have a coat which lacks buttons in front, my shirt is all ragged, my elbows are torn, my boots let in the water; for the last six weeks I have not thought about it, and I have not told you about it. You only see me at night, and you give me your love; if you were to see me in the daytime, you would give me a sou! — Victor Hugo

Try as you will, you cannot annihilate that eternal relic of the human heart, love. — Victor Hugo

I love all men who think, even those who think otherwise than myself. — Victor Hugo

When those we love are in question, our prudence invents every sort of madness. — Victor Hugo

This child whom we Love, Brings daylight Into our soul. — Victor Hugo

What love commences can be finished by God alone. — Victor Hugo

What Is Love? I have met in the streets a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul — Victor Hugo

The sadness which reigned everywhere was but an excuse for unfailing kindness. — Victor Hugo

Love, the future is thine. Death, I make use of thee, but I hate thee. Citizens, in the future there will be neither darkness nor thunderbolts; neither ferocious ignorance, nor bloody retaliation. As there will be no more Satan, there will be no more Michael. In the future no one will kill any one else, the earth will beam with radiance, the human race will love. The day will come, citizens, when all will be concord, harmony, light, joy and life; it will come, and it is in order that is may come that we are about to die. — Victor Hugo

"Dost thou understand? I love thee!" he cried again."What love!" said the unhappy girl with a shudder.He resumed,
"The love of a damned soul. — Victor Hugo

Pedantry. What was this excess of love? It was a serene — Victor Hugo

For with love there is no middle course: it destroys, or else it saves. All human destiny is contained in that dilemma, the choice between destruction and salvation, which is nowhere more implacably posed than in love. Love is life, or it is death. It is the cradle, but also the coffin. One and the same impulse moves the human heart to say yes or no. Of all things God has created it is the human heart that sheds the brightest light and, alas, the blackest despair. — Victor Hugo

Love is a fault; so be it. — Victor Hugo

He found that man needs affection, that life without a warming love is but a dry wheel, creaking and grating as it turns. — Victor Hugo

To love or have loved is enough. Don't ask for anything more. There is no other pearl to be found in the shadowy folds of life. To love is an achievement. — Victor Hugo

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. — Victor Hugo

I encountered in the street a penniless young man who was in love. His hat was old and his jacket worn, with holes at the elbows; water soaked through his shoes, but starlight flooded through his soul. — Victor Hugo

Look not at the face, young girl, look at the heart. The heart of a handsome young
man is often deformed. There are hearts in which love does not keep. Young girl, the
pine is not beautiful; it is not beautiful like the poplar, but it keeps its foliage in
winter. — Victor Hugo

He sleeps although so much he was denied. He lived and when his dear love left him died. It happened of itself, in the easy way that in the morning night time follows day — Victor Hugo

If she had not been a gypsy, and if he had not been a priest — Victor Hugo

He caught her, she fell, he caught her in his arms, he held her tightly unconscious of what he was doing. He held her up, though tottering himself. He felt as if his head were filled with smoke; flashes of light slipped through his eyelids; his thoughts vanished; it seemed to him that he was performing a religious act, and that he was committing a profanation. Moreover, he did not feel one passionate desire for this ravishing woman, whose form he felt against his heart. He was lost in love. — Victor Hugo

Loving is almost a substitute for thinking. Love is a burning forgetfulness of all other things. How shall we ask passion to be logical? — Victor Hugo

If he had had all Peru in his pocket, he would certainly have given it to this dancer; but Gringoire had not Peru in his pocket; and besides, America was not yet discovered. (p. 66) — Victor Hugo

What I feel for you seems less of earth and more of a cloudless heaven. — Victor Hugo

Promise to give me a kiss on my brow when I am dead.
I shall feel it."
She dropped her head again on Marius' knees, and her eyelids closed. He thought the poor soul had departed. Eponine remained motionless. All at once, at the very moment when Marius fancied her asleep forever, she slowly opened her eyes in which appeared the sombre profundity of death, and said to him in a tone whose sweetness seemed already to proceed from another world:
"And by the way, Monsieur Marius, I believe that I was a little bit in love with you. — Victor Hugo

Each of our passions, even love, has a stomach that must not be overloaded. We must in everything write the word 'finis' in time; we must restrain ourselves, when it becomes urgent; we must draw the bolt on the appetite, play a fantasia on the violin, then break the strings with our own hand. The Wise man is he who knows when and how to stop. — Victor Hugo

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved
loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves. — Victor Hugo

If people did not love one another, I really don't see what use there would be in having any spring. — Victor Hugo

He loved books, those undemanding but faithful friends. — Victor Hugo

The present, due to its staggering complexities, is almost as conjectural as the past." - George Jackson "Dawn also has its terrors." - Victor Hugo "America is our country, more than it is the whites' ... we have enriched it with our blood and tears." - David Walker "My love to all who love their neighbors." - John Brown — Terry Bisson

Love resembles a tree: it bends under its own weight, deeply rooted in our being and sometimes turns green in the ruins of a heart. — Victor Hugo

Having love means not losing the light.And what love!Love entirely pure.Blindness does not exist where there is certainty.The soul gropes for another soul-and finds it.And this soul found and tried and tested is a woman.A hand supports you,it is hers;lips brush your forehead,hers;you hear breathing right next to you,it is her breathing.To have all of her,from her devotion to her sympathy,never to be abandoned,to have that sweet frailty that succours you,to lean on such an unshakable reed,to touch Providence with your own hands and hold it in your arms. — Victor Hugo

The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only. — Victor Hugo

After he had fully determined that the young man was at the bottom of this state of affairs, and that it all came from him, he Jean Valjean, the regenerated man, the man who had laboured so much upon his soul, the man who had made so many efforts to resolve all life, all misery, and all misfortune into love; he looked within himself, and there he saw a spectre, Hatred. — Victor Hugo

I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, his cloak was out at the elbows, the water passed through his shoes and the stars though his soul" - Victor Hugo — Alex Flinn

Does it serve any purpose to ungild the crown of Louis XIV, to scrape the coat of arms of Henry IV? We scoff at M. de Vaublanc for erasing the N's from the bridge of Jena! What was it that he did? What are we doing? Bouvines belongs to us as well as Marengo. The fleurs-de-lys are ours as well as the N's. That is our patrimony. To what purpose shall we diminish it? We must not deny our country in the past any more than in the present. Why not accept the whole of history? Why not love the whole of France?" It — Victor Hugo

I have been loving you a little more every minute since this morning. — Victor Hugo

All of us, whoever we may be, have our respirable beings. We lack air and we stifle. Then we die. To die for lack of love is horrible. Suffocation of the soul. — Victor Hugo

Love is jealous, and ingenious in self-torture in proportion as it is pure and intense. — Victor Hugo

They say love is blindness of heart; I say not to love is blindness. — Victor Hugo

Love one another dearly, always. Nothing else in the world really matters but that: to love one another. — Victor Hugo