Daydream, which is to thought as the nebula is to the star, borders on sleep, and is concerned with it as its frontier. An atmosphere inhabited by living transparencies: there's a beginning of the unk...
A mother's arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them.
Though one believes in nothing, there are moments in life when one accepts the religion of the temple nearest at hand.
What a grand thing, to be loved! What a grander thing still, to love!
There comes an hour when protest no longer suffices; after philosophy there must be action; the strong hand finishes what the idea has sketched.
Make thought a whirlwind.
A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil.
Slowly he took out the clothes in which, ten years beforem Cosette had left Montfermeil; first the little dress, then the black scarf, then the great heavy child's shoes Cosette could still almost hav...
Hardly had the light been extinguished, when a peculiar trembling beganto affect the netting under which the three children lay.It consisted of a multitude of dull scratches which produced a metallics...
It is wrong to become absorbed in the divine law to such a degree as not to perceive human law. Death belongs to God alone. By what right do men touch that unknown thing?
God manifests himself to us in the first degree through the life of the universe, and in the second degree through the thought of man. The second manifestation is not less holy than the first. The fir...
Let us never fear robbers or murderers. They are dangers from without, petty dangers. Let us fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices are the real murderers. The great dangers lie within...
These two beings, who had loved each other so exclusively, and with so touching a love, and who had lived so long for each other, were now suffering beside one another and through one another; without...
The barber ran to the broken window, and saw Gavroche, who was running with all his might towards the Saint Jean market. On passing the barber's shop, Gavroche, who had the two children on his mind, c...
At the side of Enjolras, who represented the logic of revolution, was Combeferre, representing its philosophy. The difference between logic and philosophy is that one can decide upon war, whereas the...
This barricade is made neither of paving stones, nor of timbers, nor of iron; it is made of two mounds, a mound of ideas and a mound of sorrows. Here misery encounters the ideal. Here the day embraces...
When you shall have learned to know, and to love, you will still suffer. The day is born in tears. The luminous weep, if only over those in darkness.
…to cause constellations of victories to flash forth at each instant from the zenith of the centuries, to make the French Empire a pendant to the Roman Empire, to be the great nation and to give birth...
Usually, the murmur that rises up from Paris by day is the city talking; in the night it is the city breathing; but here it is the city singing. Listen, then, to this chorus of bell-towers - diffuse o...
Grantaire, earthbound in doubt, loved to watch Enjolras soaring in the upper air of faith. He needed Enjolras. Without being fully aware of it, or seeking to account for it himself, he was charmed by...