Quotes by Hugo, Victor

It is the essence of truth that it is never excessive. Why should it e >>

I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was >>

In each age men of genius undertake the ascent. From below, the world >>

Quotations about Despotism

The real stumbling-block of totalitarian régimes is not the spiritual >>

The arbitrary rule of a just and enlightened prince is always bad. His >>

Despotism is unjust to everybody, including the despot, who was probab >>

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.

Hugo, Victor