With Cosette’s garter, Homer would make the Iliad. He would put into his poem an old babbler like me, and he would call him Nestor.
While contemplating the bride, and eyeing the cake of soap, he muttered between his teeth: 'Tuesday. It was not Tuesday. Was it Tuesday? Perhaps it was Tuesday. Yes, it was Tuesday.' No one has ever d...
While a battle still entirely political was preparing in this same place which had already seen so many revolutionary events, while the youth, the secret associations, the schools in the name of princ...
What are the convulsions of a city in comparison with the insurrections of the soul? Man is a depth still greater than the people.
What a pity! said Combeferre. What hideous things these butcheries are! Come, when there are no more kings, there will be no more war. Enjolras, you are taking aim at that sergeant, you are not lookin...
We say and exclaim within ourselves without breaking silence, in a tumult where everything speaks except our mouths. The realities of the soul are none the less real for being invisible and impalpable...
Vulgarity is an old Narcissus who adores himself and applauds the common vulgarity.
Victor
To speak out aloud when alone is as it were to have a dialogue with the divinity which is within.
To realize one's dream. To whom is this accorded? There must be elections for this in heaven; we are all candidates, unknown to ourselves; the angels vote.
To love, or to have loved,—this suffices. Demand nothing more. There is no other pearl to be found in the shadowy folds of life. To love is a fulfilment.
To breath the air of Paris preserves the soul.
Thou art free!
Those who have succeeded in procuring this admirable materialism have the joy of feeling themselves irresponsible, and of thinking that they can devour everything without uneasiness,--places, sinecure...
This humble soul loved, and that was all.
There is no hypocrisy so great as the words which we say to ourselves, I wish to know the worst! At heart we do not wish it at all. We have a dreadful fear of knowing it. Agony is mingled with a dim e...
There is lucidity inspired by the nearness of the grave:to be close to death is to see clearly
There comes a day when the young girl glances in this manner. Woe to him who chances to be there! That first gaze of a soul which does not, as yet, know itself, is like the dawn in the sky. It
Then, with the barricades complete, the posts assigned, the muskets loaded, the lookouts placed, alone in these fearful streets in which there were now no pedestrians, surrounded by these dumb, and se...
The universe appeared to him like an immense malady; everywhere he felt fever, everywhere he heard the sound of suffering, and, without seeking to solve the enigma, he strove to dress the wound.