Authors / Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo quotes

1802–1885 · French novelist and poet

Hugo wrote Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. Some "Hugo quotes" come from the 1980s musical, not from the novel.

1 real · 2 not theirs

1 quotes traced to Victor Hugo's own work or a reliable witness.

Sourced

The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved.

Source: Les Misérables, Fantine, Book 5, ch. 4 (1862)

2 famous lines credited to Victor Hugo that are misquoted, unsourced or belong to someone else.

Misquoted

Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.

The real words: Condensed from Histoire d'un crime (1877): an invasion of armies can be resisted, an invasion of ideas cannot.

Not theirs

To love another person is to see the face of God.

Actually: A lyric from the 1980 stage musical Les Misérables, not from Hugo's novel.