Victor Hugo Quotes

For me, the reason why people go to a mountaintop or go to the edge of the ocean is to look at something larger than themselves. That feeling of awe, of going to a cathedral, it's all about feeling lost in something bigger than oneself. To me, that's the definition of spectacle.

The ideal has many names, and beauty is but one of them.

To experience sublime natural beauty is to confront the total inadequacy of language to describe what you see. Words cannot convey the scale of a view that is so stunning it is felt.

The universe is wonderful, but only when there is somebody there to wonder at it.

There is nothing as special as watching greatness.

I've seen the majestic beauty of nature and the overwhelming perfection of it. To me, there's nothing closer to God than that.

With wonder, admiration, and reverential awe, one may contemplate the vastness with which he finds himself here surrounded, the perfusion of nature's bounties, and sublimity of scenery, but to describe them, to picture them as they are, is beyond the scope of human capacity.

The excellency of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeable evaporate.

I'm very conscious of trying to make something epic out of something small and ordinary.

Washington is an endless series of mock palaces clearly built for clerks.

I know no subject more elevating, more amazing, more ready to the poetical enthusiasm, the philosophical reflection, and the moral sentiment than the works of nature. Where can we meet such variety, such beauty, such magnificence?

How does a person feel when looking at the sky? He thinks that he doesn't have enough tongues to describe what he sees. Nevertheless, people have never stopping describing the sky, simply listing what they see.

The sky is the part of creation in which nature has done for the sake of pleasing man.

Yosemite Valley, to me, is always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space.

Nature is in austere mood, even terrifying, withal majestically beautiful.

Bald as the bare mountain tops are bald, with a baldness full of grandeur.

If you can't be in awe of Mother Nature, there's something wrong with you.

Wonder was the grace of the country. Any action could be justified by that: the wonder it was rooted in. Period followed period, and finally the wonder was that things could be built so big. Bridges, skyscrapers, fortunes, all having a life first in the marketplace, still drew on the force of wonder.

Good God what a fine sight. I had no conception that there was such a scene in the world, and to find it in my own dominions.

The ancient city Aqpu, where kings who had preceded me had built, had deteriorated and turned into ruined hills. I rebuilt the city completely, decorated it and made it bigger than it was before. I then built my palace.

Castles, palaces, cathedrals, fortresses, all speak in their various ways of the greatness and the strength of the people who built them and against whom they were built. This real greatness shines through the fake grandeur of rulers and endows these buildings with a lasting beauty.

A Time of Greatness.

There's something overwhelming about being in raw nature. It's got an aura about it is that is really kind of majestic and spiritual.

'Flower' is about the sublime.

The moments that I feel the most imbued with a sense of awe are always the moments when I am outdoors. I can't help but feel a certain sense of wonder - I become almost filled with it.