Die Wissenschaft muss mit glatten Wangen begonnen werden und nicht erst mit runzeligen, wenn man in ihr etwas erreichen will.
It seemed as though he had for a soul the book of the natural law.
But that which pleases us in people who are rising pleases us less in the case of people who are falling.
Despots play their part in the works of thinkers. The writer doubles and trebles the power of writing when a ruler imposes silence on the people.
The utmost extremity of degradation is the obscene merriment to which it gives rise.
The peculiarity of prudery is to station the more sentries the less the fortress is menaced.
The soul of a young girl should not be left in the dark; later on, mirages that are too abrupt and too lively are formed there, as in a dark chamber.
To-morrow fulfils its work irresistibly, and it is already fulfilling it to-day.
Madame Thenardier was approaching her forties, which is equivalent to fifty in a woman...
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.
Among all these passionate hearts and all these undoubting minds there was one skeptic. How did he happen to be there? From juxtaposition. The name of this skeptic was Grantaire, and he usually signed with this rebus: R. Grantaire was a man who took good care not to believe in anything.
Smoking blood, over-filled cemeteries, mothers in tears, – these are formidable pleaders. When the earth is suffering from too heavy a burden, there are mysterious groanings of the shades, to which the abyss lends an ear.
Every one has noticed the taste which cats have for pausing and lounging between the two leaves of a half-shut door. Who is there who has not said to a cat, “Do come in!
Do not inquire he name if him who asks a shelter of you. The very man who’s embarrassed by his name is the one who needs shelter.
The cities make ferocious men because they may corrupt man. The mountain, the sea, the forest, make savage men; they development fierce side, but often without destroying the humane side.
Be off with you, or I’ll blow up the barricade!
This is a leviathan I am about to ship out to sea...
It is nothing to die; it is horrible not to live.
The pupil dilates in the night, and at last finds day in it, even as the soul dilates in misfortune, and at last finds God in it.
The moment comes when protest is not enough; reason must give way to action, and force ensure what thought has conceived.