Victor Hugo, in full Victor Marie Hugo (26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French poet, novelist, and dramatist. He is considered the most well-known French Romantic writer. In France, Hugo's literary fame comes first from his poetry but also rests upon his novels and his dramatic achievements. Among many volumes of poetry, Les Contemplations and La Légende des siècles stand particularly high in critical esteem. Outside France, his best-known works are the novels Les Misérables, 1862, and Notre-Dame de Paris, 1831, (also known in English as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame).
Though a committed royalist when he was young, Hugo's views changed as the decades passed; he became a passionate supporter of republicanism, and his work touches upon most of the political and social issues and artistic trends of his time. He is buried in the Panthéon.
Read more about Victor Hugo: Personal Life, Writings, Political Life and Exile, Religious Views, Victor Hugo and Music, Declining Years and Death, Last Will, Drawings, Memorials, Works
Famous quotes by victor hugo:
“The greatest blunders, like the thickest ropes, are often compounded of a multitude of strands. Take the rope apart, separate it into the small threads that compose it, and you can break them one by one. You think, ‘That is all there was!’ But twist them all together and you have something tremendous.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“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 (1802–1885)
“God has bestowed two gifts on man: hope and ignorance. Ignorance is the better of the two.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Victor Hugo.”
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963)
“Whenever we encounter the Infinite in man, however imperfectly understood, we treat it with respect. Whether in the synagogue, the mosque, the pagoda, or the wigwam, there is a hideous aspect which we execrate and a sublime aspect which we venerate. So great a subject for spiritual contemplation, such measureless dreaming—the echo of God on the human wall!”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)