A chair is not a caste.
Running beer gathers no foam.
There is, we are aware, a philosophy that denies the infinite. There is also a philosophy, classified as pathologic, that denies the sun; this philosophy is called blindness.
Who goes there?” At the same time, the click of guns, as they were lowered into position, was heard. Enjolras replied in a haughty and vibrating tone: – “The French Revolution!
There are moments when the hands of a woman possess super human force.
With the exercise of a little care, the nettle could be made useful; it is neglected and it becomes hurtful. It is exterminated. How many men resemble the nettle!” He added with a pause: “Remember this, my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators.
Never, even among animals, does the creature born to be a dove change into an osprey. That is only seen among men.
I make little account of victory. Nothing is so stupid as to vanquish; the real glory is to convince.
The infinite has being. It is there. If infinity had no self then self would not be. But it is. Therefore it has a self. The self of infinity is God.
As for us, we respect the past here and there, and we spare it, above all, provided that it consents to be dead. If it insists on being alive, we attack it, and we try to kill it.
Liberation is not deliverance. One gets free from the galleys, but not from the sentence.
Because things are not agreeable,” said Jean Valjean, “that is no reason for being unjust towards God.
There are no bad plants or bad men. There is only bad husbandry.
To love, or to have loved, – this suffices. Demand nothing more. There is no other pearl to be found in the shadowy folds of life. To love is a fulfilment.
To be a saint is the exception; to be an upright man is the rule. Err, fall, sin if you will, but be upright.
Hours of ecstasy are never more than a moment.
There is no one for spying on people’s actions like those who are not concerned in them.
It is an error to imagine that fate can be exhausted, and that one has reached the bottom of anything whatever.
Do what we may to shape the mysterious stuff of which our lives are composed, the dark threads of our destiny will always re-emerge.
We all know the artfulness with which a dropped coin hides itself, and the job we have to find it again. There are thoughts which play the same trick on us, rolling into a buried corner of our minds; and there it is, they’ve gone forever, we can’t put our finger on them.