The boughs, without becoming detached from the trunk grow away from it.
The attempt has been made, and wrongly, to make a class of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie is simply the contented portion of the people. The bourgeois is the man who now has time to sit down. A chai...
The Genesis Of ButterfliesThe dawn is smiling on the dew that coversThe tearful roses; lo, the little loversThat kiss the buds, and all the flutteringsIn jasmine bloom, and privet, of white wings,That...
Superstitions, bigotries, hypocrisies, prejudices, these phantoms, phantoms though they be, cling to life; they have teeth and nails in their shadowy substance, and we must grapple with them individua...
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 of
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...
She could become a child again, run and frolic, leave her hat on Valjean’s knees and fill it with bunches of wild flowers. She could watch the butterflies, although she never tried to catch them; tend...
Red, for the blood of angry men, black, for the night that will finally end.
Profound hearts, wise minds, take life as God makes it; it is a long trial, and unintelligible preparation for the unknown destiny.
Pierce through the livid face of a human being at certain moments as they ponder, look behind the facade, look into the soul, look into the darkness. There, beneath the outer silence, titanic struggle...
One can no more prevent thought from recurring to an idea than one can the sea from returning to the shore: the sailor calls it the tide; the guilty man calls it remorse; God upheaves the soul as he d...
One becomes gradually accustomed to poison.
On ne lit pas impunément des niaiseries
Notre-Dame de Paris is, in particular, a curious specimen of this variety. Each face, each stone of the venerable monument, is a page not only of the history of the country, but of the history of scie...
Nothing proceeds more directly and more sincerely from the very depth of our soul, than our unpremeditated and boundless aspirations towards the splendors of destiny.
Night-time, regarded as a separate sphere of creation, is a universe in itself. The material nature of man, upon which philosophers tell us that a column of air forty-five miles in height continually...
Ne pas voir les gens, cela permet de leur supposer toutes les perfections.
Moreover, there are, and it is proper to add this distinction to the distinctions already pointed out in another chapter,—there are accepted revolutions, revolutions which are called revolutions; ther...
Monsieur Bienvenu was simply a man who accepted these mysterious questions...and who had in his soul a deep respect for the mystery which enveloped them.
Marius was of the temperament that sinks into grief and remains there; Cosette was of the sort that plunges in and comes out again.