“Great grief is a divine and terrible radiance which transfigures the wretched.”

— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables (1862), tr. Charles E. Wilbour, Vol. 1, Book V, Ch. 13

About Victor Hugo

1802 – 1885

French poet and novelist, author of "Les Misérables" and "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame".

“Deeds of daring dazzle history and form one of man's guiding lights.”

“When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age.”

“One resists the invasion of armies; one does not resist the invasion of ideas.”

“Death, like generation, is a secret of Nature.”

“If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.”

“No hour of life is lost that is spent in the saddle.”

“A witticism is an epigram on the death of a feeling.”

“Accepting the absurdity of everything around us is one step, a necessary experience: it should not become a dead end.”

“In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes!”