What a contemplation for the mind, and what endless food for thought, is the reverberation of God upon the human wall!
We must never fear robbers or murderers. They are dangers from outside, small dangers. It is ourselves we have to fear. Prejudice is the real robber, vice the real murderer. Why should we be troubled...
We may remain more or less open-minded on the subject of the death penalty, indisposed to commit ourselves, so long as we have not seen a guillotine with our own eyes.
To love your neighbors is to see the face of God.- Les Miserables
To love or have loved is enough. Don't ask for anything more. There is no other pearl to be found in the shadowy folds of life. To love is an achievement.
To destroy abuses is not enough; Habits must also be changed. The windmill has gone, but the wind is still there.~old man G--- to Monseigneur Bienvenu Myriel
They fathomed principle; they attached themselves to right. They longed for the absolute, they caught glimpses of the infinite realisations; the absolute, by its very rigidity, pushes the mind towards...
Therefore, said the Bishop, I intend to go without escort. You do not really mean that, Monseigneur! exclaimed the mayor. I do mean it so thoroughly that I absolutely refuse any gendarmes, and shall s...
There is no one for spying on people's actions like those who are not concerned in them
There are no bad plants or bad men. There is only bad husbandry.
The whole of progress tends in the direction of solution. Some day we shall be amazed. As the human race mounts upward, the deep layers emerge naturally from the zone of distress. The obliteration of...
The sunshine was delightful, the foliage gently astir, more from the activity of birds than from the breeze. One gallant little bird, doubtless lovelorn, was singing his heart out at the top of a tall...
The straight line, a respectable optical illusion which ruins many a man.
The reduction of the universe to the compass of a single being, and the extension of a single being until it reaches God - that is love. Love is the salute of the angels to the stars.
The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories that it has come to be disbelieved. Few people dare say nowadays that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each othe...
The poor man shuddered inside, flooded with an angelic bliss; he told himself in a burst of joy that this would last all his life; he
The point which we consider it our duty to note is, that outside of and beyond his faith, as it were, the Bishop possessed an excess of love. In was in that quarter, quia multum amavit,—because he lov...
The paradise of the rich is made out of the hell of the poor.
The jostling of young minds against each other has this wonderful attribute that one can never foresee the spark, nor predict the flash. What will spring up in a moment? Nobody knows. A burst of laugh...
The eye of a man should be still more reverent before the rising of a young maiden than before the rising of a star. The possibility of touch should increase respect. The down of the peach, the dust o...