And so, being in Heaven, it was easy for him to lose sight of earth.
Love each other dearly always. There is scarcely anything else in the world but that: to love one another.
There are moments when a rope’s end, a pole, the branch of the tree, is life itself, and it is a frightful thing to see a living being lose his hold upon it, and fall like a ripe fruit.
In 1815, M. Charles-Francois-Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of D – – He was an old man of about seventy-five years of age; he had occupied the see of D – – since 1806.
You are adorable, mademoiselle. I study your feet with the microscope and your soul with the telescope.
The guillotine is the ultimate expression of Law, and its name is vengeance; it is not neutral, nor does it allow us to remain neutral.
She worked in order to live, and presently fell in love, also in order to live, for the heart, too, has its hunger.
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.
Youth is the future smiling at a stranger, which is itself.
You would have imagined her at one moment a maniac, at another a queen.
Revolutions are not born of chance but of necessity.
Often the losing of a battle leads to the winning of progress. Less glory but greater liberty: the drum is silent and the voices of reason can be heard.
Daring is the price of progress. All splendid conquests are the prize of boldness, more or less.
A fall from such a height is rarely straight downwards.
That is the explanation of war, an outrage by humanity upon humanity in despite of humanity.
Great griefs exhaust. They discourage us with life. The man into whom they enter feels something taken from him. In youth, their visit is sad; later on, it is ominous.
Die, very good, but do not make others die. Suicides like the one which is about to take place here are sublime, but suicide is restricted, and does not allow of extension; and so soon as it affects your neighbors, suicide becomes murder.
A one-eyed man is much more incomplete than a blind man, for he knows what it is that’s lacking.
Genuflection before the idol or the dollar destroys the muscles which walk and the will that moves.
Be happy without picking flaws.