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...

People do not read stupidities with impunity.

Hardly had the light been extinguished, when a peculiar trembling beganto affect the netting under which the three children lay.It consisted of a multitude of dull scratches which produced a metallicsound, as if claws and...

Ecclesiastes names thee Almighty, the Maccabees name thee Creator, the Epistle to the Ephesians names thee Liberty, Baruch names thee Immensity, the Psalms name thee Wisdom and Truth, John names thee Light, the Book of...

Slowly he took out the clothes in which, ten years beforem Cosette had left Montfermeil; first the little dress, then the black scarf, then the great heavy child’s shoes Cosette could still almost have worn,...

They are les misérables – the outcasts, the underdogs. And who is to blame? Is it not the most fallen who have most need of charity?

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?

If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness. (Monseigneur Bienvenu in _Les Miserables_)

Tant qu’il existera, par le fait des lois et des mœurs, une damnation sociale créant artificiellement, en pleine civilisation, des enfers, et compliquant d’une fatalité humaine la destinée qui est divine; tant que les trois...

You were right to come to see a dying man. It is right that these moments should have witnesses. Everyone has his dream; I would like to live till dawn, but I know I have...

Be happy without picking flaws.