Ah, Monsieur Priest, you love not the crudities of the truth. Christ loved them. He seized a rod and cleared out the Temple. His scourge, full of lightnings, was a harsh speaker of truths. When he cried, 'Finite PALULOS,' he made no distinction between the little children. It would not have embarrassed him to bring together the Dauphin of Barabbas and the Dauphin of Herod. Innocence, Monsieur, is its own crown. Innocence has no need to be a highness. It is as august in rags as in Fleur de lies.

— Victor Hugo

A library implies an act of faith.

— Victor Hugo

A library implies an act of faith which generations, still in darkness hid, sign in their night in witness of the

— Victor Hugo

A library implies an act of faith which generations, still in darkness hid, sign in their night in witness of the dawn." (1872)

— Victor Hugo

All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come.

— Victor Hugo

All this ferment was public, we might almost say tranquil. The imminent insurrection gathered its storm calmly in the face of the government. No singularity was lacking in this crisis, still subterranean, but already perceptible. The middle class talked quietly with workingmen about the preparations. They would say, "How is the uprising coming along?" in the same tone in which they would have said," How's your wife?

— Victor Hugo

A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor.

— Victor Hugo

A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labor and there is invisible labor.

— Victor Hugo

A man may beg, but a woman has to sell.

— Victor Hugo

A miscreant with coiffed, scented hair, a slender waist, the hips of a woman and the chest of a Prussian officer, with a finely tied cravat, by all girls admired. ~ [introduction of character Montparnasse]

— Victor Hugo