Victor Hugo Quotes

It is as inhuman to be totally good as it is to be totally evil.

Ah, Miss Harriet, it would do us no harm to remember oftener than we do, that vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!

It is the nature of men having escaped one extreme, which by force they were constrained long to endure, to run headlong into the other extreme, forgetting that virtue doth always consist in the mean.

Be moderate in everything, including moderation.

The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.

There is moderation even in excess.

Everyone talks about moderation. How about some moderation in moderation?

I work very hard at creating complex characters, a mix of positives and negatives. They are all flawed. I believe flaws are almost universal, and they help us understand, sympathise and, paradoxically, feel closer to such characters.

Happy the man when he has not the defects of his qualities.

… vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!

On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.

Everything runs to excess; every good quality is noxious if unmixed.

He who tip-toes cannot stand; he who strides cannot walk.

We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke strops our vice.

We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke straps our vice. Where is the skillful swordsman who can give clean wounds, and not rip up his work with the other edge?

In excess, most endeavors and possessions take on the characteristics of their opposite.

Our senses perceive no extreme. Too much sound deafens us; too much light dazzles us; too great distance or proximity hinders ourview. Too great length and too great brevity of discourse tends to obscurity; too much truth is paralyzing.... In short, extremes are for us as though they were not, and we are not within their notice. They escape us, or we them.

Too much is the same as not enough.

Most virtue lies between two vices.

I find that the best virtue I have has in it some tincture of vice.

In avoiding one vice fools rush into the opposite extreme.

Every vice is only an exaggeration of a necessary and virtuous function.

None so good that he has no faults, None so wicked that he is worth naught.

So much good, so much evil. Just add water.

Extremes are for us as if they were not, and as if we were not in regard to them; they escape from us, or we from them.