If they had had a different neighbour, one less self-absorbed and more concerned for others, a man of normal, charitable instincts, their desperate state would not have gone unnoticed, their distress-...
If there did not exist some one who loved, the sun would become extinct.
I did not think that it was so monstrous. 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 un...
How was Jean Valjean going to conduct himself in the face of Cosette and Marius's happiness? A happiness he himself had wanted, that he himself had made; he was the one who had stabbed himself in the...
His whole life was now summed up in two words: absolute uncertainty within an impenetrable fog.
His brain was in one of those states that are both violent and yet frighteningly calm, in which thought runs so deep it blots out reality. You no longer see the objects around you, yet you can see the...
Her heart ached, but she took her resolution. It will be seen that Fantine possessed the stern courage of life.
He who has not been a stubborn accuser in prosperity should hold his peace in the face of ruin.
He was fond of saying, There is a bravery of the priest as well as the bravery of a colonel of dragoons,--only, he added, ours must be tranquil.
He was a friendly but sad figure. People said of him: 'A rich man who is not proud. A fortunate man who does not look happy.
He left her. She was dissatisfied with him. He had preferred to incur her anger rather than cause her pain. He had kept all the pain for himself.
He found that man needs affection, that life without a warming love is but a dry wheel, creaking and grating as it turns.
France bleeds, but liberty smiles, and before the smile of liberty, France forgets her wound.
For there are many great deeds done in the small struggles of life. There is a determined though unseen bravery that defends itself foot by foot in the darkness against the fatal invasions of necessit...
Fever supports the sick man, and love the lover.
Everything looked charming to him now. Never again would he read these books, write on this little white wooden table!
Civil war... What did the words mean? Was there any such thing as 'foreign war'? Was not all warfare between men warfare between brothers? Wars could only be defined by their aims. There were no 'fore...
But you are good-natured princes, and you do not think it a bad thing that belief in the good God should constitute the philosophy of the people, very much as the goose stuffed with chestnuts is the t...
A tempest ceases, a cyclone passes over, a wind dies down, a broken mast can be replaced, a leak can be stopped, a fire extinguished, but what will become of this enormous brute of bronze?
A man may beg, but a woman has to sell.