Victor Hugo Quotes

The abolition of war is like the abolition of slavery, a matter of education and civilization.

Young people of this century, like my son, didn't live through all those things that went on during that period of time, from 1930 to 1950. They're missing that experience. To go from a bicycle to a vehicle that takes somebody to the moon - only we saw this kind of thing.

Home in Ireland, I went to Collins Barracks and spent some time wandering around, making notes on the various guns, knives and swords.

In the industrial age natural, history and cultural artifacts had more utilitarian functions such as the development of industry and the promotion of patriotism.

War is a crime committed by men and, therefore, when enough people say it shall not be, it cannot be.

The reason why many young people in the Vietnam War era were active was their lives were threatened by the draft and they were going to perhaps be forced to go overseas and fight in an immoral war.

People are incredibly rude about it sometimes. Like "What? You're married?" Strange reaction to have. Proves what people's ideas about marriage are. "We're having a baby." "What?" As if it's the end of the world. Of course, it's the start of a brilliant world.

You may hear people say that submarines have done away with the battleship, and that aircraft have annulled the mastery of the sea. That is what our pessimists say. But do you imagine that the clumsy submarine or the fragile aeroplane is really the last word of science?

There can be little doubt that in many ways the story of bridge building is the story of civilisation. By it we can readily measure an important part of a people's progress.

SAD, BUT ONE DAY OUR KIDS WILL HAVE TO VISIT MUSEUMS TO SEE WHAT A LADY LOOKS LIKE.

It has been remarked (by a lady infinitely cleverer than the present author) how kindly disposed the world in general feels to young people who either die or marry.

You look back in time to when there was slavery and you think 'how did people even remotely believe that this was a good idea?'.It's incomprehensible for us to think of what the mindset was 100 or 200 years ago. I hope to make the present as incomprehensible to the future as the past is to us.

We live in what virtually amounts to a museum - which does not happen to a lot of people.

The great question is, can war be outlawed from the world? If so, it would mark the greatest advance in civilization since the Sermon on the Mount.

Young people - with their dynamism, their energy and their inherent understanding of our interconnected world - have much to teach us. Increased educational attainment, advances in technology and the spread of information have made this generation the best educated, most connected and most informed in history

Americans are funny people: first you shock them, then they put you in a museum.

We must not bring one war to an end, or thirty; but the idea of war itself.

I think - you know, I can't speak for 13 million people, but I think most of my supporters understand Trump has got to be defeated. We need to elect as many progressives as possible. And we need to continue the fight to create an agenda which works for working families and not just for wealthy campaign contributors.

In his life, [Dalton] Trumbo uses wit and comedy to fight these very high-stakes battles.

We're trying to sell peace, like a product, you know, and sell it like people sell soap or soft drinks. And it's the only way to get people aware that peace is possible, and it isn't just inevitable to have violence. Not just war - all forms of violence.

For me, my dream came true. But for society it showed me that people want to move on, to look to the future. We said something, we made a statement.

Many of the products which create a modern standard of living are only the physical incorporations of ideas- not only the ideas of an Edison or a Ford but the ideas of innumerable anonymous people who figure out the design of supermarkets, the location of gasoline stations, and the million mundane things on which our material well-being depends. Societies which have more people carrying out physical acts and fewer people supplying ideas do not have higher standards of living. Quite the contrary.

In the forests of central India and in many, many rural areas, a huge battle is being waged. Millions of people are being driven off their lands by mining companies, by dams, by infrastructure companies, and a huge battle is being waged. These are not people who have been co-opted into consumer culture, into the western notions of civilisation and progress. They are fighting for their lands and their livelihoods, refusing to be looted so that someone somewhere far away may "progress" at their cost.

One of the problems and the reason why Carolyn [Maloney ] wrote the book, the Rumors of Our Progress Have Been Greatly Exaggerated is that some people think we have made it when we have not and there's much to be done.

I have a message for all of you. The crime and violence that today afflicts America will soon - and I mean very soon - come to an end.