Victor Hugo's most beautiful quotes
The top 3 according to 11 votes from people: Those who live are those who fight. · Tomorrow, at dawn, at the hour when the countryside whitens, I will set out. · It is nothing to die; it is dreadful not to live.. (Updated Apr 3, 2021.)
Victor Hugo lines that are still quoted today, with the work they come from: Les Misérables, Les Contemplations, Les Châtiments, Hernani… Only quotes checked against his texts.
Automatically translated (original in Français). See the original
Top 12
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1
Those who live are those who fight.
Les Châtiments (1853), a poem written in exile against Napoleon III.
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2
Tomorrow, at dawn, at the hour when the countryside whitens, I will set out.
Les Contemplations (1856), the poem to his daughter Léopoldine, who drowned in 1843.
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3
It is nothing to die; it is dreadful not to live.
Les Misérables (1862), about Jean Valjean.
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4
There are no bad weeds and no bad men. There are only bad cultivators.
Monsieur Madeleine in Les Misérables (1862).
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5
I am a force on the move!
Hernani (1830), the play whose premiere sparked the «battle of Hernani».
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6
And if only one remains, I shall be that one!
Ultima verba, in Les Châtiments (1853).
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7
The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of…
«The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.» Les Misérables (1862).
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8
When liberty returns, I will return.
Actes et paroles: his answer to Napoleon III's amnesty in 1859, from exile in Guernsey.
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9
To love or to have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further.
Les Misérables (1862).
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10
Laughter is sunshine; it chases winter from the human face.
Les Misérables (1862).
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11
Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.
William Shakespeare (1864), his essay on the English playwright.
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12
One resists the invasion of armies; one does not resist the invasion of ideas.
Histoire d'un crime (1877); the origin of the famous «nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come».
Candidates
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13
Melancholy is the happiness of being sad.
Toilers of the Sea (1866).
How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.
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Comments (9)
Je reviens toujours à « Demain, dès l'aube ». Merci pour cette liste.
Victor Hugo, le plus grand.
«Demain, dès l'aube», appris par cœur au collège, toujours aussi émouvant.
Merci pour les sources, trop de fausses citations circulent sur Hugo.
Il manque « Ouvrez une école, vous fermerez une prison » !
Elle est très souvent attribuée à Hugo mais on ne la trouve pas telle quelle dans ses textes, d'où l'absence je pense.
Le rire, c'est le soleil... magnifique.
« Ceux qui vivent, ce sont ceux qui luttent », ma devise depuis le lycée.
« Demain, dès l'aube » me fait pleurer à chaque fois. Pour Léopoldine...