She might have melted a heart of stone, but nothing can melt a heart of wood.
He would give all of his clothes to his servant, admonishing him NOT to return them until he had completed his day’s work.
In the relations of humans with the animals, with the flowers, with all the objects of creation, there is a whole great ethic scarcely seen as yet.
Genius is rare because the means of becoming one have not been available.
It is those books which a man possesses but does not read which constitute the most suspicious evidence against him.
You preserve your shame but you kill your glory.
This child whom we Love, Brings daylight Into our soul.
A joyous little creature, so beautiful, It was as if a gate of Heaven opened as she came in...
If I were Jesus Christ, I would save Judas.
Proverty and wealth are comparative sins.
Those who always pray are necessary to those who never pray.
Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions.
But I have been exposed, I am pursued – by myself! That is a pursuit that does not readily let go.
Marius and Cosette did not ask where this would lead them. They looked at themselves as arrived. It is a strange pretension for men to ask that love should lead them somewhere.
My day’s work will begin again the next morning. The tomb is not a blind alley.
Death belongs to God alone; by what right do men touch that unknown thing?
Great blunders are often made, like large ropes, of a multitude of fibres.
Art needs no spur beyond itself.
The true artist can only labor con amore.
To rove about, musing, that is to say loitering, is, for a philosopher, a good way of spending time.