It is a terrible thing to be happy! How pleased we are with it! How all-sufficient we think it! How, being in possession of the false aim of life, happiness, we forget the true aim, duty!
It behooved wise people to play the part of their own police, and to guard themselves well, and care must be taken to duly close, bar and barricade their houses, and to fasten the doors well.
In this way, his unhappy soul struggled with its anguish. Eighteen hundred years before this unfortunate man, the mysterious Being, in whom all the sanctities and all the sufferings of humanity come t...
In this nineteenth century, the religious idea is undergoing a crisis. People are unlearning certain things, and they do well, provided that, while unlearning them they learn this: There is no vacuum...
In these creations, life and symbolic value are not in contradiction: they intensify each other.
In the meantime, let us study things that are no more. It is necessary to know them, if only for the purpose of avoiding them. The counterfeits of the past assume false names, and gladly call themselv...
In the course of these trips he was kind and indulgent, and talked rather than preached. He never went far in search of his arguments and his examples. He quoted to the inhabitants of one district the...
In that pallid and sullen shadow in which he crawled, whenever he turned his head and endeavoured to raise his eyes, he saw, with mingled rage and terror, forming, massing, and mounting up out of sigh...
In opposition to this celestial tenderness, he summoned up pride, the fortress of evil in man.
In fact, he who has only beheld the misery of man has seen nothing; the misery of woman is what he must see; he who has seen only the misery of woman has seen nothing; he must see the misery of the ch...
If you are a stone, be adamant; if you are a plant, be the sensitive plant; if you are a man, be love.
If she gives me all her time it is because I have all her heart.
I tell you, monsieur, it’s the end of the world. The students’ behaviour has never been so outrageous. It’s all these damnable modern inventions that are the ruin of everything.
I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat was threadbare - there were holes at his elbows; the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul.
I have just met Marius' new hat and new coat, with Marius inside them.
I am not enthusiastic over your Jesus, who preaches renunciation and sacrifice to the last extremity. 'Tis the counsel of an avaricious man to beggars. Renunciation; why? Sacrifice; to what end? I do...
Here we stop. On the threshold of wedding nights stands an angel smiling, a finger to his lips.
He who is not master of his own thoughts is not accountable for his own deeds.
He who every morning plans the transaction of the day and follows out that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through the maze of the most busy life.
He who despairs is wrong. Progress infallibly awakens, and, in short, we might say that it advances even in sleep, for it has grown.