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

While a battle still entirely political was preparing in this same place which had already seen so many revolutionary events, while the youth, the secret associations, the schools in the name of principles, and the middle class in the name of interests, were moving in to dash against each other, to grapple and overthrow each...

All this ferment was public, we might almost say tranquil.The imminent insurrection gathered its storm calmly in the face of the government. No singularity was lacking in this crisis, still subterranean, but already perceptible. The middle class talked quietly with workingmen about the preparations. They would say, “How is the uprising coming along?” in the...

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. He knew every little detail of that great thing.A pontifical and warrior nature, strange in a youth. He was officiating...

That is because our barricade is made of good intentions.

Every man who has in his soul a secret feeling of revolt against any act of the State, of life, or of destiny, is on the verge of riot; and so soon as it appears, he begins to quiver, and to feel himself borne away by the whirlwind.

One might almost say that affinities begin with the letters of the alphabet. In that sequence, O and P are inseparable. You might just as well say O and P as Orestes and Pylades. A true satellite of Enjolras, Grantaire lived within this circle of young men. He dwelt among them, only with them was...

Whether true or false, what is said about men often has as much influence on their lives, and particularly on their destinies, as what they do.

This is one of those rare moments when, while doing that which it is one’s duty to do, one feels something which disconcerts one, and which would dissuade one from proceeding further; one persists, it is necessary, but conscience, though satisfied, is sad, and the accomplishment of duty is complicated with a pain at the...

Night sometimes lends such tragic assistance to catastrophe.

What greater flood can there be than the flood of ideas? How quickly they submerge all that they set out to destroy, how rapidly do they create terrifying depths?

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.

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

Madame Thenardier was approaching her forties, which is equivalent to fifty in a woman…

Et ces deux mes, sœurs tragiques, s’envolèrent ensemble, l’ombre de l’une mêlée à la lumière de l’autre.

To study in Paris is to be born in Paris!

I wanted to see you again, touch you, know who you were, see if I would find you identical with the ideal image of you which had remained with me and perhaps shatter my dream with the aid of reality.-Claude Frollo

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

Every bird that flies has the thread of the infinite in its claw.

Hope is the Word which God has written on the brow of every man.

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

A bird alone could have extricated himself from that place.

There is, we are aware, a philosophy that denies the infinite. There is also a philosophy, classified as pathologic, that denies the sun; this philosophy is called blindness. To set up a theory that lacks a source of truth is an excellent example of blind assurance. And the odd part of it is the haughty...

Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars. Cimourdain was full of virtues and truth, but they shine out of a dark background.

Life’s great happiness is to be convinced we are loved.

Those who do not weep, do not see.

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.

The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only.

I see black light (his last words)

Happiness lies for those who cry, those who hurt, those who have searched, and those who have tried for only they can appreciate the importance of people who have touched their lives.

Sin is a gravitation.

The wise man does not grow old, but ripes.

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

So bring me this man, trembling and shivering from head to foot; let me fall into his arms or down at his knees; he will weep and we shall weep, he will be eloquent and I shall be comforted, and my heart shall melt into his, he will take my soul, and I his God.But...

À ceux qui ignorent, enseignez-leur […]Le coupable n’est pas celui qui y fait le péché, mais celui qui y a fait l’ombre.

To attempt, to brave, to persist, and persevere, to be faithful to one’s self, to wrestle with destiny, to astound the catastrophe by the slight fear which is causes us, now to confront unjust power, again to insult intoxicated victory, to hold firm and withstand — such is the example which nations need and the...

He who opens a school door, closes a prison.

Teach the ignorant as much as you can; society is culpable in not providing a free education for all and it must answer for the night which it produces. If the soul is left in darkness sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the...

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 capo vacillante, ma col piede fermo, salì lentamente la scala di pietre costruita nella barricata. Lo spettacolo era così serio...

If he had had all Peru in his pocket, he would certainly have given it to this dancer; but Gringoire had not Peru in his pocket; and besides, America was not yet discovered. (p. 66)

Listen, Monsieur Director, here’s what I think. Obviously this is wrong. There are twenty-six of you in five or six small rooms; there are three of us in space enough for sixty. That is wrong, I assure you. You have my house and I am in yours. Give me back mine and this will be...

Cosette, in her seclusion, like Marius in his, was all ready to take fire. Destiny, with its mysterious and fatal patience, was slowly bringing these two beings near each other, fully charged and all languishing with the stormy electricities of passion,—these two souls which held love as two clouds hold lightning, and which were to...

This conflict between right and fact has endured since the origins of society. To bring the duel to an end, to consolidate the pure ideal with the human reality, to make the right peacefully interpenetrate the fact, and the fact the right, this is the work of the wise.

La vie, le malheur, l’isolement, l’abandon, la pauvreté, sont des champs de bataille qui ont leurs héros ; héros obscurs plus grands parfois que les héros illustres.

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

The earth is a great piece of stupidity.

Who has been unhooking the stars without my permission, and putting them on the table in the guise of candles?

Good night! Good night!Far flies the light;But still God’s loveShall shine above,Making all bright,Good night! Good night!

There is in every village a torch – the teacher:and an extinguisher – the clergyman.

There exists yonder in the mountains,” said the Bishop, “a tiny community no bigger than that, which I have not seen for three years. They are my good friends, those gentle and honest shepherds. They own one goat out of every thirty that they tend. They make very pretty woollen cords of various colors, and...