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Primitive times are lyrical, ancient times epical, modern times dramatic. The ode sings of eternity, the epic imparts solemnity tohistory, the drama depicts life. The characteristic of the first poetry is ingeniousness, of the second, simplicity, of the third, truth.

Victor Hugo

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Victor Hugo
Age: 83 †
Born: 1802
Born: February 26
Died: 1885
Died: May 22
Drawer
Essayist
Illustrator
Librettist
Memoirist
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Politician
Travel Writer
Writer
Besac
Victor Marie Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo
Victor Marie
Comte Hugo
Modern
Simplicity
Lyrical
Literature
Third
Impart
Times
Thirds
Sings
History
Ancient
Characteristic
Truth
Eternity
Epic
Depicts
Firsts
Drama
Primitive
Odes
First
Poetry
Characteristics
Imparts
Life
Second
Dramatic
Solemnity

More quotes by Victor Hugo

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Every bird which flies has the thread of the infinite in its claw. Germination includes the hatching of a meteor and the tap of a swallow's bill breaking the egg, and it leads forward the birth of an earth-worm and the advent of Socrates.
Victor Hugo
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Daring is the price of progress. All splendid conquests are the prize of boldness, more or less.
Victor Hugo
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All animals are to be found in men and each of theme exists in some man, sometimes several at the time.
Victor Hugo
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Man's greatest actions are performed in minor struggles. Life, misfortune, isolation, abandonment and poverty are battlefields which have their heroes - obscure heroes who are at times greater than illustrious heroes.
Victor Hugo
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Toleration is the best religion.
Victor Hugo
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All roads are blocked to a philosophy which reduces everything to the word no. To no there is only one answer and that is yes. Nihilism has no substance. There is no such thing as nothingness, and zero does not exist. Everything is something. Nothing is nothing. Man lives more by affirmation than by bread.
Victor Hugo
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Liberation is not deliverance.
Victor Hugo
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Art moves. Hence its civilizing power.
Victor Hugo
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He had not yet lived long enough to have discovered that nothing is more close at hand then the impossible, and that what must be looked for is always the unforeseen.
Victor Hugo
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I only take a half share in the civil war I am willing to die, I am not willing to kill.
Victor Hugo
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Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars.
Victor Hugo
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Nature is pitiless she never withdraws her flowers, her music, her fragrance, and her sunlight from before human cruelty or suffering.
Victor Hugo
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God in his harmony has equal ends For cedar that resists and reed that bends For good it is a woman sometimes rules, Holds in her hand the power, and manners, schools, And laws, and mind succeeding master proud, With gentle voice and smiles she leads the crowd, The somber human troop.
Victor Hugo
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Emergencies have always been necessary to progress. It was darkness which produced the lamp. It was fog that produced the compass. It was hunger that drove us to exploration. And it took a depression to teach us the real value of a job.
Victor Hugo
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To meditate is to labour to think is to act.
Victor Hugo
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It is the essence of truth that it is never excessive. Why should it exaggerate? There is that which should be destroyed and that which should be simply illuminated and studied. How great is the force of benevolent and searching examination! We must not resort to the flame where only light is required.
Victor Hugo
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We are on the side of religion as opposed to religions, and we are among those who believe in the wretched inadequacy of sermons and the sublimity of prayer.
Victor Hugo
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A tempest ceases, a cyclone passes over, a wind dies down, a broken mast can be replaced, a leak can be stopped, a fire extinguished, but what will become of this enormous brute of bronze?
Victor Hugo
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A language does not become fixed. The human intellect is always on the march, or, if you prefer, in movement, and languages with it.
Victor Hugo
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To learn to read is to light a fire.
Victor Hugo