Cosette, by learning that she was beautiful, lost the grace of not knowing it; an exquisite grace, for beauty heightened by artlessness is ineffable, and nothing is so adorable as dazzling innocence, going on her...

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

These two beings, who had loved each other so exclusively, and with so touching a love, and who had lived so long for each other, were now suffering beside one another and through one another;...

Come on. We must have a little pity. Do you know what we’re talking about now?…When a man supports his relatives by his labor, he has no right to sacrifice himself. That is deserting his...

That is because our barricade is made of good intentions.

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

A shadow is hard to seize by the throat and dash to the ground.

When you shall have learned to know, and to love, you will still suffer. The day is born in tears. The luminous weep, if only over those in darkness.

One can say that Javert is our conscience. The ever lurking presence of the law and our own condemnation. The tension between who we were and who we are and who we can be. Javert...

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?

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...

He thought of that heroic Colonel Pontmercy . . . who had left upon every field of victory in Europe drops of that same blood which he, Marius, had in his veins, who had grown...

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,...

The music department is going to do a musical next year,” he tells me, rolling his eyes like I would.Justine is running toward me, and I can tell by the look on her face that...

Marius and Cosette were in the dark in regard to each other. They did not speak, they did not bow, they were not acquainted; they saw each other; and, like the stars in the sky...

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...

If no one loved, the sun would go out.

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

You are never fully dressed until you put on a smile!

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

Joy is the reflex of terror.

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

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,...

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.

[He] had to submit to the fate of every newcomer in a small town, where many tongues talk but few heads think.

So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine...

A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in–what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.

She let her head fall back upon Marius’ knees and her eyelids closed. He thought that poor soul had gone. Eponine lay motionless; but just when Marius supposed her for ever asleep, she slowly opened...

To breathe Paris is to preserve one’s soul.

As with stomachs, we should pity minds that do not eat.

In the chaos of sentiments and passions which defend a barricade, there is something of everything; there is bravery, youth, honor, enthusiasm, the ideal, conviction, the eager fury of the gamester, and above all, intervals...

The poor man shuddered, overflowed with an angelic joy; he declared in his transport that this would last through life; he said to himself that he really had not suffered enough to deserve such radiant...

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...

He was troubled; this brain, so limpid in its blindness, had lost its transparency; there was a cloud in this crystal.

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

A cannonball travels only two thousand miles an hour; light travels two hundred thousand miles a second. Such is the superiority of Jesus Christ over Napoleon.

Allez, philosophes, enseignez, éclairez, allumez, pensez haut, parlez haut, courez joyeux au grand soleil, fraternisez avec les places publiques, annoncez les bonnes nouvelles, prodiguez les alphabets, proclamez les droits, chantez les Marseillaises, semez les enthousiasmes,...

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...

Oh! if the good hearts had the fat purses, how much better everything would go!

Let no one misunderstand our idea; we do not confound what are called ‘political opinions’ with that grand aspiration after progress with that sublime patriotic, democratic, and human faith, which, in our days, should be...

A bird alone could have extricated himself from that place.

It is a mournful task to break the sombre attachments of the past.

To commit the least possible sin is the law for man. To live without sin is the dream of an angel. Everything terrestrial is subject to sin. Sin is a gravitation.

Darks drifts covered the horizon. A strange shadow approaching nearer and nearer, was spreading little by little over men, over things, over ideas; a shadow which came from indignations and from systems. All that had...

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

That it was no doubt a dark hour, but that he should get through it; that after all he held his destiny, evil as it might be, in his own hand; that he was master...

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