Victor Hugo Soul Quotations

If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness. (Monseigneur Bienvenu in _Les Miserables_)

This first glance of a soul which does not yet know itself is like dawn in the heavens; it is the awakening of something radiant and unknown.

The most beautiful of altars, he said, is the soul of an unhappy creature consoled and thankfing God.

We say and exclaim within ourselves without breaking silence, in a tumult where everything speaks except our mouths. The realities of the soul are none the less real for being invisible and impalpable.

Is there not in every human soul a primitive spark, a divine element, incorruptible in this world and immortal in the next, which can be developed by goodness, kindled, lit up, and made to radiate, and which evil can never entirely extinguish.

A breath of Paris preserves the soul.

I like the laughter that opens the lips and the heart, shows at the same time the pearls and the soul.

‎"Dost thou understand? I love thee!" he cried again."What love!" said the unhappy girl with a shudder.He resumed,--"The love of a damned soul.

You are adorable, mademoiselle. I study your feet with the microscope and your soul with the telescope.

The soul in the darkness sins, but the real sinner is he who caused the darkness.

Her soul trembled on her lips like a drop of dew on a flower.

We must never fear robbers or murderers. They are dangers from outside, small dangers. It is ourselves we have to fear. Prejudice is the real robber, vice the real murderer. Why should we be troubled by a threat to our person or our pocket? What we have to beware of is the threat to our souls'.

Why worry about what threatens our heads or purses? Let us think instead of what threatens our souls.

Wisdom is the health of the soul.

The soul does not give itself up to despair until it has exhausted all illusions.

The production of souls is the secret of unfathomable depth.

To breathe Paris is to preserve one's soul.

This child whom we Love, Brings daylight Into our soul.

One of the hardest labours of the just man is to expunge from his soul a malevolence which it is difficult to efface.

I'm not in the world to guard my own life, but to guard souls

Wonderful nature has a double meaning, which dazzles great minds and blinds uncultivated souls. When man is ignorant, when the desert is filled with visions, the darkness of solitude is added to the darkness of intelligence; hence, in man, the possibilities of perdition

The hand which moves over the dial moves also among souls.

There are souls which, crab-like, crawl continually toward darkness, going back in life rather than advancing in it, using what experience they have to increase their deformity, growing worse without ceasing, and becoming steeped more and more thoroughly in an intensifying wickedness.

In love, such a word, whispered, is a mysterious kiss of the soul to the soul.

The soul has greater need of the ideal than of the real

To die for lack of love is horrible. The asphyxia of the soul.

Love partakes of the soul itself. it is of the same nature. like it, it is a divine spark, like it, it is incorruptible, indivisible, imperishable, it is the point of fire which is within us, which is immortal and infinite, which nothing can limit and nothing can extinguish.

Woe, alas, to those who have loved only bodies, forms, appearances! Death will rob them of everything. Try to love souls, you will find them again.

I am a soul. I know well that what I shall render up to the grave is not myself. That which is myself will go elsewhere. Earth, thou art not my abyss!

Nothing is more true, more real, than the primeval magnetic disturbances that two souls may communicate to one another, through the tiny sparks of a moment's glance.

I am not in the world to care for my life, but for souls.

What a gloomy thing, not to know the address of one's soul.

The pupil dilates in darkness and in the end finds light, just as the soul dilates in misfortune and in the end finds God.

Teach the ignorant as much as you can; society is culpable in not providing a free education for all and it must answer for the night which it produces. If the soul is left in darkness sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.

The soul helps the body, and at certain moments raises it. It is the only bird that sustains its cage.

The soul has illusions as the bird has wings: it is supported by them.

Love is a portion of the soul itself, and it is of the same nature as the celestial breathing of the atmosphere of paradise.

One of the hardest tasks is to extract continually from one's soul an almost inexhaustible ill will.

Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars.