Miserables Hugo Quotes & Sayings

Nobody loves the light like the blind man. — Victor Hugo

There is a point at which the unfortunate and the infamous are associated and confounded in a single word, a fatal word, Les Miserables. — Victor Hugo

Before him he saw two roads, both equally straight; but he did see two; and that terrified him
he who had never in his life known anything but one straight line. And, bitter anguish, these two roads were contradictory. — Victor Hugo

My reading and drawing drew me away from the ordinary interests, and I lived a great deal in the world of imagination, feeding upon any book that fell into my hands. When I had got hold of a really thick book like Hugo's 'Les Miserables,' I was happy and would go off into a corner to devour it. — Jacob Epstein

Table talk and Lovers' talk equally elude the grasp; Lovers' Talk is clouds, Table Talk is smoke.
Les Miserables — Victor Hugo

Let us never fear robbers or murderers. They are dangers from without, petty dangers. Let us fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices are the real murderers. The great dangers lie within ourselves. What matters it if something threatens are head or our purse! Let us think only of that which threatens the soul. — Victor Hugo

To learn to read is to light a fire — Victor Hugo

Javert, though hideous, was not ignoble. — Victor Hugo

There is a way of avoiding a person which resembles a search. — Victor Hugo

There comes an hour when protest no longer suffices; after philosophy there must be action; the strong hand finishes what the idea has sketched. — Victor Hugo

As he spoke all tongues, he entered into all hearts. — Victor Hugo

Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over, this is recognised: that the human race has been harshly treated, but that it has advanced. — Victor Hugo

Fex urbis, lex orbis" (The dregs of the city, the law of the earth), from Les Miserables, attributed to St. Jerome — Victor Hugo

One aspect of Samantha's personality that drove me nuts was her tendency to reveal herself via literary allusions. She called it a quirk, but it was more of a compulsion. Her mother was Lady Macbeth; her father, Big Daddy. An uncle she liked was Mr. Micawber, a favorite governess, Jane Eyre; a doting professor, Mr. Chips.
This curious habit of hers quickly made the voyage from eccentric to bizarre when she began to invoke the names of literary characters to describe moments in our relationship. When she thought I was treating her rudely, she called me Wolf Larsen; if I was standoffish, I was Mr. Darcy; when I dressed too shabbily, I was Tom Joad.
Once, in bed, she yelled out the name Victor as she approached orgasm. I assumed she was referring to Victor Hugo because she'd been reading 'Les Miserables.'. It didn't really bother me that much though it was a little odd being with a woman who thought she was having sex with a dead French author. — John Blumenthal

The book the reader has now before his eyes - from one end to the other, in its whole and in its details, whatever the omissions, the exceptions, or the faults - is the march from evil to good, from injustice to justice, from the false to the true, from night to day, from appetite to conscience, from rottenness to life, from brutality to duty, from Hell to Heaven, from nothingness to God. Starting point: matter; goal: the soul. Hydra at the beginning, angel at the end. — Victor Hugo

There is a point when the unfortunate and the infamous are associated and confused in a word, a mortal word, les miserables — Victor Hugo

Sure, 'Les Miserables' can be melodramatic. And seeing the musical instead of reading the novel will save you some time and spare you the long part where Hugo goes on and on about the Parisian sewer system. But I would hate for the novel to lose that. — Garth Risk Hallberg

People weighed down with troubles do not look back; they know only too well that misfortune stalks them. — Victor Hugo

He was fond of books, for they are cool and sure friends — Victor Hugo

Supreme resources spring from extreme resolutions.
Les Miserables, page 674 — Victor Hugo

These two beings, who had loved each other so exclusively, and with so touching a love, and who had lived so long for each other, were now suffering beside one another and through one another; without speaking of it, without harsh feeling, and smiling all the while. — Victor Hugo

A doctor's door should never be closed, a priest's door should always be open. — Victor Hugo

A breath of Paris preserves the soul. — Victor Hugo

If they had had a different neighbour, one less self-absorbed and more concerned for others, a man of normal, charitable instincts, their desperate state would not have gone unnoticed, their distress-signals would have been heard, and perhaps they would have been rescued by now. Certainly they appeared utterly depraved, corrupt, vile and odious; but it is rare for those who have sunk so low not to be degraded in the process, and there comes a point, moreover, where the unfortunate and the infamous are grouped together, merged in a single fateful word. They are les miserables - the outcasts, the underdogs. And who is to blame? Is it not the most fallen who have most need of charity? — Victor Hugo

Never had the sky been more studded with stars and more charming, the trees more trembling, the odor of the grass more penetrating; never had the birds fallen asleep among the leaves with a sweeter noise; never had all the harmonies of universal serenity responded more thoroughly to the inward music of love; never had Marius been more captivated, more happy, more ecstatic. — Victor Hugo

[He] had to submit to the fate of every newcomer in a small town, where many tongues talk but few heads think. — Victor Hugo

A people, like stars, are entitled to eclipse. All is well, provided the light returns and the eclipse does not become endless night. Dawn and resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is the same as the survival of the soul. — Victor Hugo

There is always a patch of blue sky to lovers, although the rest of the world may see nothing but their umbrellas. — Victor Hugo

When the nettle is young, the leaves make excellent greens; when it grows old it has filaments and fibers like hemp and flax. Cloth made from the nettle is as good as that made from hemp. Chopped up, the nettle is good for poultry; pounded, it is good for horned cattle. The seed of the nettle mixed with the fodder of animals gives a luster to their skin; the root, mixed with salt, produces a beautiful yellow dye. It makes, however, excellent hay, as it can be cut twice in a season. And what does the nettle need? very little soil, no care, no culture; except that the seeds fall as fast as they ripen, and it is difficult to gather them; that is all. If we would take a little pains, the nettle would be useful; we neglect it, and it becomes harmful. Then we kill it. How much men are like the nettle! My friends, remember this, that there are no weeds, and no worthless men, there are only bad farmers. — Victor Hugo

Let no one misunderstand our idea; we do not confound what are called 'political opinions' with that grand aspiration after progress with that sublime patriotic, democratic, and human faith, which, in our days, should be the very foundation of all generous intelligence. — Victor Hugo

The most beautiful of altars, he said, is the soul of an unhappy creature consoled and thankfing God. — Victor Hugo

Morality is truth in full bloom. — Victor Hugo

Make thought a whirlwind. — Victor Hugo

I don't know whether it will be read by everyone, but it is meant for everyone. It addresses England as well as Spain, Italy as well as France, Germany as well as Ireland, the republics that harbour slaves as well as empires that have serfs. Social problems go beyond frontiers. Humankind's wounds, those huge sores that litter the world, do not stop at the blue and red lines drawn on maps. Wherever men go in ignorance or despair, wherever women sell themselves for bread, wherever children lack a book to learn from or a warm hearth, Les Miserables knocks at the door and says, 'Open up, I am here for you. — Victor Hugo

To commit the least possible sin is the law for man. To live without sin is the dream of an angel. Everything terrestrial is subject to sin. Sin is a gravitation. — Victor Hugo

In college, I was a huge fan of 'Les Miserables.' I seem to remember that people who were into French literature preferred Hugo's poetry. — Garth Risk Hallberg

Slowly he took out the clothes in which, ten years beforem Cosette had left Montfermeil; first the little dress, then the black scarf, then the great heavy child's shoes Cosette could still almost have worn, so small was her foot, then the vest of very thich fustian, then the knitted petticoat, the the apron with pockets, then the wool stockings ... Then his venerable white head fell on the bed, this old stoical heart broke, his face was swallowed up, so to speak, in Cosette's clothes, and anybody who had passed along the staircase at that moment would have heard irrepressible sobbing. — Victor Hugo

A shadow is hard to seize by the throat and dash to the ground. — Victor Hugo

The beginning as well as the end of all his thoughts was hatred of human law, that hatred which, if it be not checked in its growth by some providential event, becomes, in a certain time, hatred of society, then hatred of the human race, and then hatred of creation, and reveals itself by a vague and incessant desire to injure some living being, it matters not who. — Victor Hugo

The scaffold is the accomplice of the executioner; it devours, it eats flesh, it drinks blood; the scaffold is a sort of monster fabricated by the judge and the carpenter, a spectre which seems to live with a horrible vitality composed of all the death which it has inflicted. — Victor Hugo

To love your neighbors is to see the face of God.
- Les Miserables — Victor Hugo

Ah! There you are! he exclaimed, looking at Jean Valjean. I'm so glad to see you. Well, but how is this? I gave you the candlesticks too, which are of silver like the rest, and for which you can certainly get two hundred francs. Why did you not carry them away with your forks and spoons? — Victor Hugo

A cannonball travels only two thousand miles an hour; light travels two hundred thousand miles a second. Such is the superiority of Jesus Christ over Napoleon. — Victor Hugo

As with stomachs, we should pity minds that do not eat. — Victor Hugo

The barber ran to the broken window, and saw Gavroche, who was running with all his might towards the Saint Jean market. On passing the barber's shop, Gavroche, who had the two children on his mind, could not resist the desire to bid him "good day", and had sent a stone through his sash.
"See!" screamed the barber, who from white had become blue, "he makes mischief. What has anybody done to this Gamin? — Victor Hugo

A little girl without a doll is almost as unhappy, and quite as impossible, as a woman without children. from chapter VIII of Les Miserables — Victor Hugo

The poor priest went to his poor mountaineers with empty hands, and he returns from them with his hands full. I set out bearing only my faith in God; I have brought back the treasure of a cathedral. — Victor Hugo

Animals are nothing else than the figures of our virtues and
our vices, straying before our eyes, the visible phantoms of our
souls. God shows them to us in order to induce us to reflect.
Only since animals are mere shadows, God has not made them
capable of education in the full sense of the word; what is the
use? On the contrary, our souls being realities and having a
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goal which is appropriate to them, God has bestowed on them
intelligence; that is to say, the possibility of education. Social
education, when well done, can always draw from a soul, of
whatever sort it may be, the utility which it contains. — Victor Hugo

So long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Miserables cannot fail to be of use. — Victor Hugo

There is a point, moreover, at which the unfortunate and the infamous are associated and confounded in a single word, Les Miserables; whose fault is it? And then, is it not when the fall is lowest that charity ought to be greatest? — Victor Hugo

The death agony of the barricade was about to begin.
For, since the preceding evening, the two rows of houses in the Rue de la Chanvrerie had become two walls; ferocious walls, doors closed, windows closed, shutters closed.
A house is an escarpment, a door is a refusal, a facade is a wall. This wall hears, sees and will not. It might open and save you. No. This wall is a judge. It gazes at you and condemns you. What dismal things are closed houses. — Victor Hugo

What greater flood can there be than the flood of ideas? How quickly they submerge all that they set out to destroy, how rapidly do they create terrifying depths? — Victor Hugo

The night was serene. Not a cloud was in the zenith. What mattered is that the earth was red, the moon retained her whiteness. Such is the indifference of heaven. — Victor Hugo

A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in
what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars. — Victor Hugo

The poor man shuddered, overflowed with an angelic joy; he declared in his transport that this would last through life; 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. — Victor Hugo

France is great because she is France. — Victor Hugo

So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation which, in the midst of civilization, artificially creates a hell on earth, and complicates with human fatality a destiny that is divine; so long as the three problems of the century - the degradation of man by the exploitation of his labour, the ruin of women by starvation and the atrophy of childhood by physical and spiritual night are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words and from a still broader point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, there should be a need for books such as this. — Victor Hugo

Revolutionists are accused of sowing fear abroad. Every barricade seems a crime. Their theories are incriminated, their aim suspected, their ulterior motive is feared, their conscience denounced. They are reproached with raising, erecting, and heaping up, against the reigning social state, a mass of miseries, of griefs, of iniquities, of wrongs, of despairs, and of tearing from the lowest depths blocks of shadow in order therein to embattle themselves and to combat. People shout to them: "You are tearing up the pavements of hell!" They might reply: "That is because our barricade is made of good intentions. — 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

But in spacious, vigorous story-telling, in the use of an historical framework, in the relating of human events to a larger philosophical and spiritual context, in the deployment of fiction as a social and political weapon, in the exultation of 'the people' as a supreme authority, in the treatment of suffering as a dominant theme--in all these matters Hugo exerted a profound influence on Tolstoy. — Peter Washington

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

The bureau is closed, said Gavroche. I'm receiving no more complaints. — Victor Hugo

I'd like a drink. I desire to forget life. Life is a hideous invention by somebody I don't know. It doesn't last, and it's good for nothing. You break your neck simply living. — 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

Ecclesiastes names thee Almighty, the Maccabees name thee Creator, the Epistle to the Ephesians names thee Liberty, Baruch names thee Immensity, the Psalms name thee Wisdom and Truth, John names thee Light, the Book of Kings names thee Lord, Exodus names thee Providence, Leviticus Sanctity, Esdras Justice, creation names thee God, man names thee Father; but Solomon names thee Compassion, which is the most beautiful of all thy names. — Victor Hugo

She let her head fall back upon Marius' knees and her eyelids closed. He thought that poor soul had gone. Eponine lay motionless; but just when Marius supposed her for ever asleep, she slowly opened her eyes in which the gloomy deepness of death appeared, and said to him with an accent the sweetness on which 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 essayed to smile again and expired. — Victor Hugo

Les Miserables is first of all the product of a varied experience of the world, containing the perceptions of an entire life. And this image of reality is also a realistic image. The symbol, as Hugo uses it, does not idealize things; rather, it expresses their spiritual meaning without disguising them. — Victor Hugo

Joy is the reflex of terror. — Victor Hugo

Books guided my life from high school, and the greatest, most interesting, most provocative, funniest, smartest people who ever lived in the last 200 or 300 years wrote those books. I would fall in love with Victor Hugo and read not just 'Les Miserables,' but 'Bug-Jargal' and 'The Toilers of the Sea' and so forth. — Robert Loomis