People do not lack strength; they lack will.
Victor Hugo

Perseverance, secret of all triumphs.
Victor Hugo

Prayer is an august avowal of ignorance.
Victor Hugo

Puns are the droppings of soaring wits.
Victor Hugo

Reaction - a boat which is going against the current but which does not prevent the river from flowing on.
Victor Hugo

Religions do a useful thing: they narrow God to the limits of man. Philosophy replies by doing a necessary thing: it elevates man to the plane of God.
Victor Hugo

Rhyme, that enslaved queen, that supreme charm of our poetry, that creator of our meter.
Victor Hugo

Scepticism, that dry caries of the intelligence.
Victor Hugo

Short as life is, we make it still shorter by the careless waste of time.
Victor Hugo

Smallness in a great man seems smaller by its disproportion with all the rest.
Victor Hugo

Society is a republic. When an individual tries to lift themselves above others, they are dragged down by the mass, either by ridicule or slander.
Victor Hugo

Son, brother, father, lover, friend. There is room in the heart for all the affections, as there is room in heaven for all the stars.
Victor Hugo

Sorrow is a fruit. God does not make it grow on limbs too weak to bear it.
Victor Hugo

Strange to say, the luminous world is the invisible world; the luminous world is that which we do not see. Our eyes of flesh see only night.
Victor Hugo

Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause.
Victor Hugo

Stupidity talks, vanity acts.
Victor Hugo

Style is the substance of the subject called unceasingly to the surface.
Victor Hugo

Sublime upon sublime scarcely presents a contrast, and we need a little rest from everything, even the beautiful.
Victor Hugo

Taste is the common sense of genius.
Victor Hugo

The animal is ignorant of the fact that he knows. The man is aware of the fact that he is ignorant.
Victor Hugo