The life of the cenobite is a human problem. When we speak of convents, those seats of error but innocence, of mistaken views but good intentions, of ignorance but devotion, of torment but martyrdom, we...

Monsieur, innocence is its own crown! Innocence has only to act to be noble! She is as august in rags as fleur de lys.

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

Should we continue to look upwards? Is the light we can see in the sky one of those which will presently be extinguished? The ideal is terrifying to behold… brilliant but threatened on all sides...

Dream no small dreams. They have no power to stir the hearts of men.

When the nettle is young, the leaves make excellent greens; when it grows old it has filaments and fibers like hemp and flax. Cloth made from the nettle is as good as that made from...

Though one believes in nothing, there are moments in life when one accepts the religion of the temple nearest at hand.

La philosophie est le microscope de la pensée.

Come fu che le loro labbra s’incontrarono? Come avviene che l’uccello canta, che la neve si scioglie, che la rosa sboccia, che maggio dà i suoi fiori, che l’alba imbianca dietro gli alberi neri le...

Night sometimes lends such tragic assistance to catastrophe.

If you ask the great city, ‘Who is this person?,’ she will answer, ‘He is my child.

The greatest products of architecture are less the works of individuals than of society; rather the offspring of a nation’s effort, than the inspired flash of a man of genius…

The earth is a great piece of stupidity.

Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over, this is recognised: that the human race has been harshly treated, but that it has advanced.

Equality, citizens, is not the whole of society on a level, a society of tall blades of grass and small oaks, or a number of entangled jealousies. It is, legally speaking, every aptitude having the...

A day will come when there will be no battlefields, but markets opening to commerce and minds opening to ideas.

Penser, voilà le triomphe vrai de l’ me.

Cosette, do you hear? he has come to that! he asks my forgiveness! And do you know what he has done for me, Cosette? He has saved my life. He has done more–he has given...