Victor Hugo Quote

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“You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea.”

- Victor Hugo

Source/Notes: Villemain (1845)

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“A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil.”

- Victor Hugo

Source/Notes: Les Misérables (1862), Volume Four: ST. DENIS, Book VIII - Enchantments and Desolations

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“A creditor is worse than a slave-owner; for the master owns only your person, but a creditor owns your dignity, and can command it.”

- Victor Hugo

Source/Notes: Variant translation: "He felt even that a creditor is worse than a master; for a master owns only your person, a creditor owns your dignity and can belabor that." - Les Misérables (1862), Volume 3: Marius, Chapter 2: Marius Poor

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“A faith is a necessity to a man. Woe to him who believes in nothing.”

- Victor Hugo

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“A great artist is a great man in a great child.”

- Victor Hugo

Source/Notes: Victor Hugo's intellectual autobiography: (Postscriptum de ma vie); being the last of the unpublished works and embodying the author's ideas on literature, philosophy and religion (1971 edition)

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“A library implies an act of faith.”

- Victor Hugo

Source/Notes: Selected Poems from the Edition Definitive (1897 edition)

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“A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor.”

- Victor Hugo

Source/Notes: Les misérables (1863 edition)

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“A mother's arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them.”

- Victor Hugo

Source/Notes: In French: "Les bras des mères sont faits de tendresse; les enfants y dorment profondément" - Les Misérables (1862), Vol.1: Fantine