James Wood, comp. Dictionary of Quotations. 1899.
Victor Hugo
A fixed idea ends in madness or heroism.
Above the cloud with its shadow is the star with its light.
Curiosity is one of the forms of feminine bravery.
Danger for danger’s sake is senseless.
Emotion is always new.
Every idea must have a visible unfolding.
Great edifices, like great mountains, are the work of ages.
He is the best gentleman that is the son of his own deserts, and not the degenerated heir of another’s virtue.
“Hélas! que j’en ai vu mourir de jeunes filles”—“Alas, how many young girls have I seen die of that!”
Il faut avoir pitié des morts—One must have pity on the dead.
It is from books that wise men derive consolation in the troubles of life.
J’en passe et des meilleurs—I pass by them, and better than they.
La popularité c’est la gloire en gros sous—Popularity is glory in penny-pieces.
Let us fear the worst, but work with faith; the best will always take care of itself.
Life is a voyage.
Luxury is an enticing pleasure, a bastard mirth, which hath honey in her mouth, gall in her heart, and a sting in her tail.
Melancholy is the pleasure of being sad.
Men no longer wholly believe; in this age of blindness and scientific pride, no one is any longer seen bowing before his god on both his knees.
O l’amour d’une mère! amour que nul n’oublie! / Pain merveilleux, que Dieu partage et multiplie! / Table toujours servie au paternel foyer! / Chacun en a sa part, et tous l’ont tout entier—Oh, the love of a mother, love no one forgets; miraculous bread which God distributes and multiplies; board always spread by the paternal hearth, whereat each has his portion, and all have it entire!
Parfois, élus maudits de la fureur suprême, / … Ces envoyés du ciel sont apparus au monde / Comme s’ils venaient de l’enfer—Sometimes these ambassadors of heaven, the accursed elect of the wrath of heaven, appear in the world as though they came from hell.
People do not lack strength; they lack will.
Progress—the stride of God.
Reverie, which is thought in its nebulous state, borders closely upon the land of sleep, by which it is bordered as by a natural frontier.
Society is a republic. When an individual endeavours to lift himself above his fellows, he is dragged down by the mass, either by ridicule or calumny.
Soyez comme l’oiseau, posé pour un instant / Sur des rameaux trop frêles, / Qui sent ployer la branche et qui chante pourtant, / Sachant qu’il a des ailes—He as the bird perched for an instant on the too frail branch which she feels bending beneath, but sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.
The child’s murmuring is more and is less than words; there are no notes, and yet it is a song; there are no syllables, and yet it is language…. This poor stammering is a compound of what the child said when it was an angel, and of what it will say when it becomes a man.
The sublimest canticle to be heard on earth is the stammering of the human soul on the lips of infancy.
The sword is but a hideous flash in the darkness; right is an eternal ray.
We are the children of our own deeds.