Sleep is in contact with the Possible, which we also call the improbable. The world of the night is a world. Night, as night, is a universe.... The dark things of the unknown world become neighbors of man, whether by true communication or by a visionary enlargement of the distances of the abyss ... and the sleeper, not quite seeing, not quite unconscious, glimpses the strange anomalities, weird vegetation, terrible or radiant pallors, ghosts, masks, figures, hydras, confusions, moonless moonlights, obscure unmakings of miracle, growths and vanishings within a murky depth, shapes floating in shadow, the whole mystery which we call Dreaming, and which is nothing other than the approach of an invisible reality. The dream is the aquarium of Night.
VICTOR HUGO, Travailleurs de la Mer
Do not economize on the hymeneal rites; do not prune them of their splendor, nor split farthings on the day when you are radiant. A wedding is not house-keeping.
VICTOR HUGO, Les Miserables
You say "society must exact vengeance, and society must punish." Wrong on both counts. Vengeance comes from the individual and punishment from God.
VICTOR HUGO, The Last Day of a Condemned Man
Life is a theatre set in which there are but few practicable entrances.
VICTOR HUGO, Les Misérables
A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labor and there is invisible labor.
VICTOR HUGO, Les Misérables
Men are still men. The despot's wickedness
Comes of ill teaching, and of power's excess--
Comes of the purple he from childhood wears,
Slaves would be tyrants if the chance were theirs.
VICTOR HUGO, The Vanished City
For sight is woman-like and shuns the old.
(Ah! he can see enough, when years are told,
Who backwards looks).
VICTOR HUGO, Eviradnus
If people did not love one another, I really don't see what use there would be in having any spring.
VICTOR HUGO, Les Misérables
All the human and animal manure which the world wastes, if returned to the land, instead of being thrown into the sea, would suffice to nourish the world.
VICTOR HUGO, Les Misérables
You may doubt I found comfort in England
But, there, 'tis a refuge from dangers!
Where a Cromwell dictated to Milton,
Republicans ne'er can be strangers!
VICTOR HUGO, "The Refugee's Haven", Poems
Much better an intelligent hell than a stupid paradise.
VICTOR HUGO, Ninety-Three
To study in Paris is to be born in Paris!
VICTOR HUGO, Les Misérables
Popularity? It's glory's small change.
VICTOR HUGO, attributed, The Concise Columbia Dictionary of Quotations
Above all, you can believe in Providence in either of two ways, either as thirst believes in the orange, or as the ass believes in the whip.
VICTOR HUGO, The Man Who Laughs
Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.
VICTOR HUGO, Intellectual Autobiography: Ideas on Literature, Philosophy and Religion
Progress is the stride of God.
VICTOR HUGO, attributed, Day's Collacon
The poet invites inspiration by meditation, as the prophets raised themselves to ecstasies by prayer.
VICTOR HUGO, "Scraps of Philosophy and Criticism", The New-England Magazine, September 9, 1835
From a political point of view, there is but one principle, the sovereignty of man over himself. This sovereignty of myself over myself is called Liberty.
