For many people in the English-speaking world, Victor Hugo’s name immediately brings up his novels The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Misérables. Their enduring success has overshadowed his many other achievements: he was a playwright, poet, politician and philosopher. And above all, he was a constant campaigner for social justice, for prison reform, abolition of the death penalty and the rights of women. He also campaigned against the excessive power of established religion on people’s lives, declaring himself a freethinker.

As a philosopher and social commentator, he was ahead of his time and his writings are still very relevant today, as the quotations in this book will reveal. They will raise many questions in your mind.