I have a dream my life would be. So different from this hell I’m living. So different now from what it seem. Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.”*Fantine

You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love, is to live by it.

Passando fra gli insorti che si scostavano con religioso rispetto, [papà Mabeuf] continuò dritto verso Enjolras che indietreggiava impietrito, gli strappò la bandiera, e senza che nessuno osasse trattenerlo né aiutarlo, quel vecchio ottuagenario col...

The peculiarity of sunrise is to make us laugh at all our terrors of the night, and our laugh is always proportioned to the fear we have had.

He left her. She was dissatisfied with him. He had preferred to incur her anger rather than cause her pain. He had kept all the pain for himself.

Where would the shout of love begin, if not from the summit of sacrifice? Oh my brothers, this is the junction between those who think and those who suffer; this barricade is made neither of...

The judge speaks in the name of justice,’ he said. ‘The priest speaks in the name of pity, which is only a higher form of justice.’ (Bishop Myriel)

. . . for men felt therein the presence of that great human thing which is called law, and that great divine thing which is called justice.

That is because our barricade is made of good intentions.

You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea. It is the cloud which thunders around everything that shines. Fame must have...

Il volgo è un vecchio Narciso che adora se stesso e applaude il volgare.

God will reward you,’ he said. ‘You must be an angel since you care for flowers.

I propose a toast to mirth; be merry! Let us complete our course of law by folly and eating! Indigestion and the digest. let Justinian be the male, and Feasting, the female! Joy the depths!...

It is not easy to keep silent when silence is a lie.

Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent

He loved books; books are cold but safe friends.

Ever since history has been written, ever since philosophy has meditated, misery has been the garment of the human race.

So you’re giving up? That’s it? Okay, okay. We’ll leave you alone, Quasimodo. We just thought, maybe you’re made up of something much stronger.

And do you know Monsieur Marius? I believe I was a little in love with you.

Wide horizons lead the soul to broad ideas; circumscribed horizons engender narrow ideas; this sometimes condemns great hearts to become small minded.Broad ideas hated by narrow ideas,—this is the very struggle of progress.

Do you hear the people sing? Singing a song of angry men

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

If we wish to be happy, monsieur, we must never comprehend duty; for, as soon as we comprehend it, it is implacable. One would say that it punishes you for comprehending it; but no, it...

A week passed, and Jean Valjean had not taken a step in his room. He still remained in bed. The portress said to her husband:–”The good man upstairs yonder does not get up, he no...

The glance of women resembles certain combinations of wheels, which are tranquil in appearance yet formidable. You pass close to them every day, peaceably and with impunity, and without a suspicion of anything. A moment...

The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves—say rather, loved in spite of ourselves.

As for methods of prayer, all are good, as long as they are sincere.

Questa luce, cioè la storia, è spietata; essa ha questo di strano e di divino, e cioè che quantunque sia luce, e precisamente perché è luce, mette spesso dell’ombra là dove si vedono raggi; dello...

I have an old hat which is not worth three francs, I have a coat which lacks buttons in front, my shirt is all ragged, my elbows are torn, my boots let in the water;...

In all Thénardier’s outpourings, the words and gestures, the fury blazing in his eyes, this explosion of an evil nature brazenly exposed, the mixture of bravado and abjectness, arrogance, pettiness, rage, absurdity; the hodgepodge of...

It is a false and dangerous situation which bases public power on private want, and roots the grandeur of the State in the suffering of the individual. It is a badly constituted grandeur which combines...

Let us show that, if the people abandon the republicans, the republicans do not abandon the people.

La sua vita era ancora troppo breve, per sapere che non c’è cosa più imminente dell’impossibile, e che quanto dobbiamo sempre prevedere è l’imprevisto.

To err his human, to stroll is Parisian.

There comes an hour when protest no longer suffices; after philosophy there must be action; the strong hand finishes what the idea has sketched.

Quel champ de bataille que l’homme ! Nous sommes livrés à ces dieux, à ces monstres, à ces géants, nos pensées.

When love has fused and mingled two beings in a sacred and angelic unity, the secret of life has been discovered so far as they are concerned; they are no longer anything more than the...

The pupil dilates in darkness and in the end finds light, just as the soul dilates in misfortune and in the end finds God.

There is neither a foreign war nor a civil war; there is only just and unjust war.

You always have everything better than the rest, even pain.

With the exercise of a little care, the nettle could be made useful; it is neglected and it becomes hurtful. It is exterminated. How many men resemble the nettle!” He added with a pause: “Remember...

If they had had a different neighbour, one less sel-absorbed and more concerned for others, a man of normal, charitable instincts, their desperate state would not have gone unnoticed, their distress-signals would have been heard,...

Because things are not agreeable,” said Jean Valjean, “that is no reason for being unjust towards God.

He was Antinous, wild. You would have said, seeing the thoughtful reflection of his eye, that he had already, in some preceding existence, been through the revolutionary apocalypse. He knew its tradition like an eyewitness....

Tatkala semesta menciut menjadi sesosok makhluk, tatkala sesosok makhluk meluas bahkan sampai menjangkau Tuhan, maka itulah cinta.

Vero o falso che sia, quel che si dice degli uomini occupa spesso altrettanto posto nella loro vita, e soprattutto nel loro destino, quanto quello che fanno.

The night was starless and very dark. Without doubt, in the gloom some mighty angel was standing, with outstretched wings, awaiting the soul.

. . .where there is no more hope, song remains.

There are, as we know, powerful and illustrious atheists. At bottom, led back to the truth by their very force, they are not absolutely sure that they are atheists; it is with them only a...

victor hugo, Les Contemplations, MorsJe vis cette faucheuse. Elle était dans son champ. Elle allait à grands pas moissonnant et fauchant, Noir squelette laissant passer le crépuscule. Dans l’ombre où l’on dirait que tout tremble...