The future has several names. For the weak, it is impossible; for the fainthearted, it is unknown; but for the valiant, it is ideal.
Love is like a tree: it grows by itself, roots itself deeply in our being and continues to flourish over a heart in ruin. The inexplicable fact is that the blinder it is, the more tenacious it is. It is never stronger than when it is completely unreasonable.
Diamonds are to be found only in the darkness of the earth, and truth in the darkness of the mind.
Nothing discernible to the eye of the spirit is more brilliant or obscure than man; nothing is more formidable, complex, mysterious, and infinite. There is a prospect greater than the sea, and it is the sky; there is a prospect greater than the sky, and it is the human soul.
And must I now begin to doubt – who never doubted all these years? My heart is stone, and still it trembles. The world I have known is lost in the shadows. Is he from heaven or from hell? And does he know, that granting me my life today, this man has killed me, even so. – Javert.
God will reward you,′ he said. ‘You must be an angel since you care for flowers.
Ce n’est rien de mourir, C’est affreux de ne pas vivre.
Monsieur’ to a convict is a glass of water to a man dying of thirst at sea; ignominy thirsts for respect.
To a gargoyle on the ramparts of Notre Dame as Esmeralda rides off with Gringoire Quasimodo says. “Why was I not made of stone like thee?
Whether true or false, what is said about men often has as much influence on their lives, and particularly on their destinies, as what they do.
To love or have loved is all-sufficing. We must not ask for more. No other pearl is to be found in the shadowfolds of life. To love is an accomplishment.
There are, as we know, powerful and illustrious atheists. At bottom, led back to the truth by their very force, they are not absolutely sure that they are atheists; it is with them only a question of definition, and in any case, if they do not believe in God, being great minds, they prove God.
Love partakes of the soul itself. it is of the same nature. like it, it is a divine spark, like it, it is incorruptible, indivisible, imperishable, it is the point of fire which is within us, which is immortal and infinite, which nothing can limit and nothing can extinguish.
At least you are mine! Soon – in a few months, perhaps, my angel will sleep in my arms, will awaken in my arms, will live there. All your thought at all moments, all your looks will be for me; all my thought, all my moments, all my looks will be for you!
His universal compassion was due less to natural instinct, than to a profound conviction, a sum of thoughts that in the course of living had filtered through to his heart: for in the nature of man, as in rock, there may be channels hollowed by the dropping of water, and these can never be destroyed.
There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.
The reduction of the universe to a single being, the expansion of a single being even to God, this is love.
There are no bad herbs or bad men; there are only bad cultivators.
The future has many names: For the weak, it means the unattainable. For the fearful, it means the unknown. For the courageous, it means opportunity.
If we wish to be happy, monsieur, we must never comprehend duty; for, as soon as we comprehend it, it is implacable. One would say that it punishes you for comprehending it; but no, it rewards you for it; for it puts you into a hell where you feel God at your side.