I'd rather be hissed at for a good verse, than applauded for a bad one. — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
A translation in verse . . . seems to me something absurd, impossible. — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
The aim of art is almost divine: to bring to life again if it is writing history, to create if it is… — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
Rhyme, that enslaved queen, that supreme charm of our poetry, that creator of our meter. — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
A poet who is a bad man is a degraded being, baser and more culpable than a bad man who is not… — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
“With Cosette’s garter, Homer would make the Iliad. He would put into his poem an old babbler like me, and he would… — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
“her nose was not handsome— it was pretty; neither straight nor curved, neither Italian nor Greek; it was the Parisian nose, that… — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
“It is a novel constructed like a poem, where each character is only exceptional because if the hyperbolic manner in which he… — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
Lastly, this threefold poetry flows from three great sources - The Bible, Homer, Shakespeare.... The Bible before the Iliad, the Iliad before… — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
For true poetry, complete poetry, consists in the harmony of contraries. Hence, it is time to say aloud--and it is here above… — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
Primitive times are lyrical, ancient times epical, modern times dramatic. The ode sings of eternity, the epic imparts solemnity tohistory, the drama… — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
Music is the vapor of art. It is to poetry what reverie is to thought, what fluid is to solid, what the… — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
The drama is complete poetry. The ode and the epic contain it only in germ; it contains both of them in a… — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart. The nearer I approach the end, the plainer I hear… — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
In the French language, there is a great gulf between prose and poetry; in English, there is hardly any difference. It is… — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
Verse in itself does not constitute poetry. Verse is only an elegant vestment for a beautiful form. Poetry can express itself in… — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
“PREFACE TO THE 1832 EDITION At the head of the earlier editions of this work, published at first without the name of… — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
“The eye of the spirit can nowhere find more dazzling brilliance and more shadow than in man; it can fix itself on… — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
“Victor-Marie Hugo (26 February 1802 — 22 May 1885) was a French poet, novelist, playwright, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights campaigner,… — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
“One may, in a case of exigency, introduce the reader in to a nuptial chamber, not into a virginal chamber. Verse would… — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
“There is still a certain grace in a dead festival. It has been happy.” — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
He caught her, she fell, he caught her in his arms, he held her tightly unconscious of what he was doing. He held her… — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
“First I loved women, then animals, and now I love stones. They're just as amusing as women and animals and they're much less trecherous.” — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
Nature is pitiless; she never withdraws her flowers, her music, her fragrance, and her sunlight from before human cruelty or suffering. — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
“Have courage for the great sorrows of life, and patience for the small ones. And when you have finished your daily task, go to… — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
The peasants of the Asturias believe that in every litter of wolves there is one pup that is killed by the mother for fear… — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
Great blunders are often made, like large ropes, of a multitude of fibres. — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
“For love is like a tree; it grows of itself; it send its roots deep into our being, and often continues to grow green… — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
“Blacheville smiles with the self-satisfied smugness of a man whose vanity is tickled” — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
“Loving in ignorance, she loved with all the more passion. She did not know whether it was good or evil, beneficent or dangerous, necessary… — Victor Hugo Copy Share Image
