Victor Hugo Quotes

At what hour, please? retort to Victor Cousin, after he claimed he could pinpoint the start of the (perceived) decay of the French language: 1978.

À quelle heure, s'il vous plaît?

Oriental studies have never been so intensive.... In the century of Louis XIV one was a Hellenist, today one is an Orientalist.... The Orient has become a sort of general preoccupation.... We shall see great things. The old Asiatic barbarism may not be as devoid of higher men as our civilization would like to believe.

Philosophy is the microscope of thought. Everything desires to flee from it, but nothing escapes it.

Les feuilles d'automne (1831)

To divinise is human, to humanise is divine.

I represent a party which does not yet exist: the party Revolution-Civilization. This party will make the twentieth century. There will issue from it first the United States of Europe, then the United States of the World.

Je représente un parti qui n'existe pas encore, le parti Révolution-Civilisation. Ce parti fera le vingtième siècle. Il en sortira d'abord les États-Unis d'Europe, puis les États-Unis du Monde.

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.

Ce besoin de l’immatériel est le plus vivace de tous. Il faut du pain; mais avant le pain, il faut l’idéal.

To rise at six, to sleep at ten,
To sup at ten, to dine at six,
Make a man live for ten times ten.

Lever à six, coucher à dix,
Dîner à dix, souper à six,
Font vivre l'homme dix fois dix.

There shall be no slavery of the mind.

This is the battle between day and night... I see black light.

C'est ici le combat du jour et de la nuit... Je vois de la lumière noire.