A saint addicted to excessive self-abnegation is a dangerous associate; he may infect you with poverty, and a stiffening of those joints which are needed for advancement — in a word, with more renunciation than you care for — and so you flee the contagion. – Victor Hugo
I love all men who think, even those who think otherwise than myself. – Victor Hugo
Freedom in art, freedom in society, this is the double goal towards which all consistent and logical minds must strive. – Victor Hugo
Smallness in a great man seems smaller by its disproportion with all the rest. – Victor Hugo
Your mock saint who stands in a niche is not a woman if she have not suffered, still less a woman if she have not sinned. Fall at the feet of your idol as you wish, but drag her down to your level after that — the only level she should ever reach, that of your heart. – Baroness Emmuska Orczy