I mean that man is ruled by a tyrant whose name is Ignorance, and that is the tyrant I sought to overthrow. That is the tyrant which gave birth to monarchy, and monarchy is authority based on falsehoo...
I encountered in the street a penniless young man who was in love. His hat was old and his jacket worn, with holes at the elbows; water soaked through his shoes, but starlight flooded through his soul...
Humanity is similarity. All men are of the same clay. No difference, here below at least, lies in predestination. The same darkness before, the same flesh during, the same ashes after life. But ignora...
However, he who says light does not, necessarily, say joy. People suffer in the light; excess burns. The flame is the enemy of the wing. To burn without ceasing to fly,—therein lies the marvel of geni...
How do we know that the creation of worlds is not determined by the fall of grains of sand?
How do we know that the creation of worlds is not determined by the fall of grains of sand? Who knows the reciprocal ebb and flow of the infinitely great and the infinitely little, the reverberations...
He was not his father, and this was not his work; but he was the master, and this was his masterpiece.
He sought...to transform the grief which looks down into the grave by showing it the grief which looks up to the stars.
He sought not to efface sorrow by forgetfulness, but to magnify and dignify it by hope. He said:— Have a care of the manner in which you turn towards the dead. Think not of that which perishes. Gaze s...
He said to himself that he really had not suffered enough to deserve such radiant happiness, and he thanked God, in the depths of his soul, for having permitted that he, a miserable man, should be so...
He kissed the handkerchief, inhaled its perfume, put it over his heart, against his flesh in the daytime, and at night went to sleep with it on his lips.I feel her whole soul in it! he exclaimed.The h...
He had not yet lived long enough to have discovered that nothing is more close at hand then the impossible, and that what must be looked for is always the unforeseen.
He had given Cosette a dress of Binche lace that had come down to him from his own grandmother. These fashions have come round again, he said, old things are all the rage, and the young women of my ol...
He doubted everything with an air of superiority--a great power in the eyes of the weak.
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...
Going about one's native land one is inclined to take many things for granted, roads and buildings, roofs, windows and doorways, the walls that shelter strangers, the house one has never entered, tree...
Gentlemen, my father always detested me because I could not understand mathematics. I understand only love and liberty.
Gauvin reprit :-Et la femme? qu'en faites-vous?Cimourdain répondit:-Ce qu'elle est. La servante de l'homme.-Oui. À une condition.-Laquelle?-C'est que l'homme sera le serviteur de la femme.-Y penses-tu...
From a political point of view, there is but one principle, the sovereignty of man over himself. This sovereignty of myself over myself is called Liberty