Victor Hugo Quotes on People (8 Quotes)


    But that which pleases us in people who are rising pleases us less in the case of people who are falling.


    This Boulatruelle was a man in bad odour with the people of the neighbourhood; he was too respectful, too humble, prompt to doff his cap to everybody; he always trembled and smiled in the presence of the gendarmes, was probably in secret connection with robber-bands, said the gossips, and suspected of lying in wait in the hedge corners at nightfall. He had nothing in his favour except that he was a drunkard.

    There is no such thing as a little country. The greatness of a people is no more determined by their numbers than the greatness of a man is by his height.

    Despots play their part in the works of thinkers. Fettered words are terrible words. The writer doubles and trebles the power of his writing when a ruler imposes silence on the people. Something emerges from that enforced silence, a mysterious fullness which filters through and becomes steely in the thought. Repression in history leads to conciseness in the historian, and the rocklike hardness of much celebrated prose is due to the tempering of the tyrant.


    People do not lack strength; they lack will.

    In each age men of genius undertake the ascent. From below, the world follows them with their eyes. These men go up the mountain, enter the clouds, disappear, reappear, People watch them, mark them. They walk by the side of precipices. They daringly pursue their road. See them aloft, see them in the distance they are but black specks. On they go. The road is uneven, its difficulties constant. At each step a wall, at each step a trap. As they rise the cold increases. They must make their ladder, cut the ice and walk on it., hewing the steps in haste. A storm is raging. Nevertheless they go forward in their madness. The air becomes difficult to breath. The abyss yawns below them. Some fall. Others stop and retrace their steps there is a sad weariness. The bold ones continue. They are eyed by the eagles the lightning plays about them the hurricane is furious. No matter, they persevere.

    The last resort of kings, the cannonball. The last resort of the people, the paving stone.


    More Victor Hugo Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Man - Life - Love - Soul - God - Mind - Woman - Nature - Light - Society & Civilization - Happiness - Fate & Destiny - Night - Sadness - Facts - Thought & Thinking - Infinity - Progress - Future - View All Victor Hugo Quotations

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