There are many tongues to talk, and but few heads to think – Victor Hugo. He who opens a school door, closes a prison. VICTOR MARIE VICOMETE HUGO, one of the most distinguished French writers, was born February 26th, 1802, at Besancon, where his father was then commandant of the garrison. He early acquired distinction by his poetic effusions, and before he was thirty years of age, his published works were numerous, and his name famous. Odes and ballads, romances, dramas, etc., flowed from his prolific pen.
Shortly before the revolution of 1830, a literary revolution took place, at the head of which was Hugo. A band of young men, imaginative, ardent, and confident, sought to renovate French literature by departing from classic rules and models, substituting a varied and very irregular verse for the monotonous Alexandrines of the old school.
The new school, “la jeune France,” as they called themselves, formed the Romanticists, and their opponents the Classicists. The literary war which arose lasted for several years.
Hugo’s popularity continued to increase, and in 1837, Louis Philippe made him an officer of the Legion of Honor, and in 1845 a peer of France.
After the revolution of 1848, he was elected to represent the city of Paris, both in the Constituent and in the Legislative Assembly, in which he manifested democratic principles, and was one of those members of the extreme left, who were banished from France for life by Louis Napoleon.
He took up his residence in the island of Jersey. In 1852, he assailed the ruler of France in a remarkable political pamphlet, Napoleon le Petit, (Napoleon the Little), which produced a great sensation; but the effect of its severity was weakencd by its undignified virulence.
In 1862, he published Les Miserables, in which, with great dramatic force, he handles some of the most important social questions. Hugo’s writings have great faults. They are often extravagant both in form and substance, and sometimes marred by an affected triviality of images and harshness of versification. Yet they have also great excellencies; the command of language is wonderful, and as a lyric poet, Hugo has, perhaps, never been equalled in France. An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise.
Victor Hugo Quotes
I don’t mind what Congress does, as long as they don’t do it in the streets and frighten the horses.
Indigestion is charged by God with enforcing morality on the stomach.
Table talk and lovers’ talk equally elude the grasp; lovers’ talk is clouds, table talk is smoke.
Love is the foolishness of men, and the wisdom of God.
Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.
Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise – Victor Hugo
To love another person is to see the face of God.
Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees.
People do not lack strength, they lack will. If I speak, I am condemned.
If I stay silent, I am damned! You ask me what forces me to speak? a strange thing; my conscience.
There are many tongues to talk, and but few heads to think – Victor Hugo
The future has several names. For the weak, it is impossible; for the fainthearted, it is unknown; but for the valiant, it is ideal.
There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.
It is not easy to keep silent when silence is a lie. Fashions have done more harm than revolutions.
When a woman is talking to you, listen to what she says with her eyes.
The word which God has written on the brow of every man is Hope.
The first symptom of love in a young man is timidity; in a girl boldness.
When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right.
There are fathers who do not love their children; there is no grandfather who does not adore his grandson.
Common sense is in spite of, not as the result of education.
A shadow is hard to seize by the throat and dash to the ground.
To destroy abuses is not enough; Habits must also be changed.
The windmill has gone, but the wind is still there.
Be a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.
England has two books, the Bible and Shakespeare.
England made Shakespeare,but the Bible made England.
A one-eyed man is much more incomplete than a blind man, for he knows what it is that’s lacking.
All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.
It is by suffering that human beings become angels.
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