Sorrow is a fruit. God does not make it grow on limbs too weak to bear it. – Victor Hugo
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
The drama is complete poetry. The ode and the epic contain it only in germ it contains both of them in a state of high development, and epitomizes both. – Victor Hugo
Have no fear of robbers or murderers. They are external dangers, petty dangers. We should fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices the real murders. The great dangers are within us. Why worry about what threatens our heads or purses? Let us think instead of what threatens our souls. – Victor Hugo