Talk:Victor Hugo

"No army can stop an idea whose time has come."

This is cited lots of ways by different people; what's the original wording in French?

"On resiste a l'invasion des armees; on ne resiste pas a l'invasion des idees," "One resists the invasion of armies, but not the invasion of ideas." Histoire d'un Crime (History of a CrIme) (1877) This is one of the most splendid and most diversely translated of all of Hugo's statements… one could probably gather at least a dozen common variants of it in english.

I've heard of the following quote (in Eats Shoots and Leaves, in particular) but can't find a source on line.:

In a letter to his publisher regarding the sales of Les Miserables:

?

In response, indicating good sales:

!

Small note -- if true, the story is that these were telegrams, not letters. Which explains the brevity since the cost of the telegram was calculated by the number of characters.

like a kiss through a veil

"A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil" Attributed to Hugo on the 'net, but did he say or write it, and if so, what's the French?

A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil.

from Volume 1 - Book Heighth - Chapter 1 of Les Misérables (check there : http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/135).

He who opens a school door closes a prison

Widely attributed to Hugo but I cannot find textual evidence. If it was said but not written, then who kept up the oral tradition until someone attributed it to Hugo? Do we at least know the first time it was attributed to Hugo?

There is a brief discussion on this quote on another page (link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk_archive/Humanities/2006_August_10#Victor_Hugo_Quote ), but since it's one of the more employed quotations (at least here in California during our current education vs. prison budget priority crisis) I think it's a good investment for Wikiquote to search for some sort of legitimate attribution. If not Hugo, does someone else deserve credit, or was it hearsay until someone decided to write it down as an alleged Hugo quote and it's stayed that way ever since? 173.164.183.149 09:07, 20 July 2011 (UTC)