He did not understand how men could busy themselves with hating each other because of silly stuff like the charter, democracy, legitimacy, monarchy, the republic, etc., when there were in the world al...
He did not seek to efface pain in forgetfulness, he sought to elevate it and to dignify it with hope. He would say, Be careful how you turn to the dead. Don't think of the rotting. Hold your gaze and...
He believed that faith gives health. He sought to counsel and calm the despairing by pointing out the Man of Resignation, and to transform the grief that contemplates the grave by showing it the grief...
God knows better than we do what we need.
God gives air to men; the law sells it to them.
God can add nothing to the happiness of those who love, except to give them endless duration.
Fex urbis, lex orbis (The dregs of the city, the law of the earth), from Les Miserables, attributed to St. Jerome
Factions are blind men who aim correctly.
Facing these men, who were ferocious, we admit, and terrifying, but ferocious and terrifying for good ends, there are other men, smiling, embroidered, gilded, beribboned, starred, in silk stockings, i...
Excess of grief, like excess of joy is a violent thing which lasts but a short time. The heart of man cannot remain long in one extremity.
Everybody has noticed the way cats stop and loiter in a half-open door. Hasn't everyone said to a cat: For heaven's sake, why don't you come in? With opportunity half-open in front of them, there are...
Every torment they had experienced was returned to them an intoxication. It seemed to them that the griefs , the sleeplessness, the tears, the anguish, the dismay, the despair, became caresses and rad...
Every time that the wind blows it bears with it more of the dreams of men than of the clouds of heaven.
Dost thou understand? I love thee! he cried again. What love! said the unhappy girl with a shudder. He resumed,--The love of a damned soul.
Does not this comprehend all, in fact? and what is there left to desire beyond it? A little garden in which to walk, and immensity in which to dream. At one's feet that which can be cultivated and plu...
Do you want a priest?I have one. answered Jean Valjean.
Death belongs to God alone. By what right do men touch that unknown thing?
Civil war—what does that mean? Is there a foreign war? Is not all war between men, war between brothers? War is qualified only by its object. There is no such thing as foreign or civil war; there is o...
Children have their morning song as well as birds.
Certainly she was wonderfully beautiful. All that could be said of her that was in any sense critical was that there seemed to be a contradiction between the look in her eyes, which tended to melancho...