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When you offer a translation to a nation, that nation will almost always look at the translation as an act of violence against itself. To translate a foreign writer is to add to your own national poetry; such a widening of the horizon does not please those who profit from it, at least not in the beginning.

— Victor Hugo

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More quotes by Victor Hugo

Happy, even in anguish, is he to whom God has given a soul worthy of love and of grief!

Les Misérables (1862)

One can no more pray too much than love too much.

Les Misérables (1862)

The best way to worship God is to love your wife.

Les Misérables (1862)

To love or to have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life. To love is a consummation.

Les Misérables (1862)

To put everything in balance is good, to put everything in harmony is better.

Ninety-Three (1874)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Victor Hugo (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.