Victor Hugo, (1802-1885) French Author, Lyric Poet, Dramatist Quotes

The convent, which belongs to the West as it does to the East, to antiquity as it does to the present time, to Buddhism and Muhammedanism as it does to Christianity, is one of the optical devices whereby man gains a glimpse of infinity.

Most commonly revolt is born of material circumstances; but insurrection is always a moral phenomenon. Revolt is Masaniello, who led the Neapolitan insurgents in ; but insurrection is Spartacus. Insurrection is a thing of the spirit, revolt is a thing of the stomach.

Those who always pray are necessary to those who never pray.

Love is the reduction of the universe to a single being.

To rescue from oblivion even a fragment of a language which men have used and which is in danger of being lost -- that is to say, one of the elements, whether good or bad, which have shaped and complicated civilization -- is to extend the scope of social observation and to serve civilization.

There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.

Where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incident, chaos will soon reign.

Friend is sometimes a word devoid of meaning; enemy, never.

Great blunders are often made, like large ropes, of a multitude of fibers.

It is not enough for us to prostrate ourselves under the tree which is Creation, and to contemplate its tremendous branches filled with stars. We have a duty to perform, to work upon the human soul, to defend the mystery against the miracle, to worship the incomprehensible while rejecting the absurd; to accept, in the inexplicable, only what is necessary; to dispel the superstitions that surround religion -- to rid God of His Maggots.