Victor Hugo (February 26, 1802 - May 22, 1885) French author

See also: Les Misérables

Table of contents

1 Sourced 1.1 William Shakespeare (1864) 2 Attributed 3 Probably misattributed 4 External links

Sourced

• You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea. It is the cloud which thunders around everything that shines. Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats. Do no bother yourself about it; disdain. Keep your mind serene as you keep your life clear.
  • Villemain (1845)

• On résiste à l'invasion des armées; on ne résiste pas à l'invasion des idées.
  • Literal Translation: "One resists the invasion of armies; one does not resist the invasion of ideas."
  • Source: Histoire d'un Crime (History of a Crime) (written 1852, published 1877)
  • Alternative translations and variants:
    • "One cannot resist an idea whose time has come."
    • "No one can resist an idea whose time has come"
    • "Nothing is stronger than an idea whose time has come"
    • "Armies cannot stop an idea whose time has come."
    • "No army can stop an idea whose time has come."
    • "There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come."

• To put everything in balance is good, to put everything in harmony is better.
  • Quatrevingt-treize (Ninety-Three) (1874)

• The need of the immaterial is the most deeply rooted of all needs. One must have bread; but before bread, one must have the ideal.
  • Love in Prison

William Shakespeare (1864)

• God manifests himself to us in the first degree through the life of the universe, and in the second degree through the thought of man. The second manifestation is not less holy than the first. The first is named Nature, the second is named Art.

• Homer is one of the men of genius who solve that fine problem of art — the finest of all, perhaps — truly to depict humanity by the enlargement of man: that is, to generate the real in the ideal.

• It is man's consolation that the future is to be a sunrise instead of a sunset.

• Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to remain silent.

Attributed

• In this world, which is so plainly the antechamber of another, there are no happy men. The true division of humanity is between those who live in light and those who live in darkness. Our aim must be to diminish the number of the latter and increase the number of the former. That is why we demand education and knowledge.

• There shall be no slavery of the mind.

Probably misattributed

• I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses.
  • Though research done for Wikiquote indicates that the attribution of this remark to Hugo seems extensive on the internet, no source has been identified. It seems to be a statement a modern satirist might make, derived from one made circa 1910 by Mrs Patrick Campbell regarding homosexuals: "Does it really matter what these affectionate people do— so long as they don’t do it in the streets and frighten the horses?"

External links