Victor Hugo Quotes

Ignorance is no excuse, it's the real thing.

Of a truth, Knowledge is power, but it is a power reined by scruple, having a conscience of what must be and what may be. . . .

Someone once asked, 'What is the difference between me and Saddam Hussein?' The answer is, 'I have a conscience and he doesn't.'

Human beings understand too much.

My guiding principle is this: Guilt is never to be doubted.

Happy is he who can trace effects to their causes.

Without moral and intellectual independence, there is no anchor for national independence.

An animal takes freely anything that it wishes: it commits no sin and is not held responsible for its action because it knows no better. But as soon as the idea of 'mine' and 'thine' has been imprinted upon our consciousness, then also the responsibility comes.

It makes a great deal of difference whether one wills not to sin or has not the knowledge to sin.

Now I come to 75 years of age, I think what's most important in life is your conscience. If you told a lie and made other people suffer, I think that's very difficult when you reach this age.

doing what is right is easy. The problem is knowing what is right

Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past, Wisdom is of the future.

A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent, like the Diety.

Judgment is not upon all occasions required, but discretion always is.

I think guilt can be good to a small degree, keep you on the right path.

I'd not want to answer for the lives of other men; not at seventeen, by God's Grace.

The plea of ignorance will never take away our responsibilities.

A guilty conscience means at least you have one.

The sense of duty pursues us ever.

Men must not only know, they must act.

A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent, like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, duty performed or duty violated is still with us, for our happiness or our misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us.

There may be responsible persons, but there are no guilty ones.

He who thinks he knows, doesn't know. He who knows that he doesn't know, knows.

The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence.

I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.