Many men have a secret monster in this same manner, a dragon which gnaws them, a despair which inhabits their night. Such a man resembles other men, he goes and comes. No one knows that he bears withi...
Man has upon him his flesh, which is at once his burden and his temptation. He drags it with him and yields to it. He must watch it, cheek it, repress it, and obey it only at the last extremity. There...
M. Mabeuf’s political opinion was a passionate fondness for plants, and a still greater one for books. He had, like everybody else, his termination in ist, without which nobody could have lived in tho...
Life, misfortune, isolation, abandonment, poverty, are the fields of battle which have their heroes; obscure heroes, who are, sometimes, grander than the heroes who win renown.
Let us remark, by the way, that the hatred of luxury is not an intelligent hatred. This hatred would involve the hatred of the arts.
Let us remark by the way, that to be blind and to be loved, is, in fact, one of the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness upon this earth, where nothing is complete. To have continually at one's...
Les contre-façons du passé prennent de faux noms et s'appellent volontiers l'avenir. Ce revenant, le passé, est sujet à falsifier son passe-port. Mettons-nous au fait du piège. Défions-nous. Le passé...
Les Miserables is first of all the product of a varied experience of the world, containing the perceptions of an entire life. And this image of reality is also a realistic image. The symbol, as Hugo u...
Le sens révolutionnaire est un sens moral. Le sentiment du droit, développé, développe le sentiment du devoir. La loi de tous, c'est la liberté, qui finit où commence la liberté d'autrui, selon l'admi...
Le coeur se sature d'amour comme d'un sel divin qui le conserve; de la l'incorruptible adherence de ceux qui se sont aimes des l'aube de la vie, et la fraicheur des vielles amours prolonges. Il existe...
It would have been difficult to say what was the nature of this look, and whence proceeded the flame that flashed from it. It was a fixed gaze, which was, nevertheless, full of trouble and tumult. And...
It was the second white apparition which he had encountered. The Bishop had caused the dawn of virtue to rise on his horizon; Cosette caused the dawn of love to rise.
It may indeed be said that the word is never a more splendid mystery than when it travels in a man's mind from thought to conscience and back again to thought.
It is man's consolation that the future is to be a sunrise instead of a sunset.
It is an error to imagine that fate can be exhausted, and that one has reached the bottom of anything whatever.
It is a terrible thing to interrogate the shadow. Who knows what its reply will be?
It has been calculated that what with salvos, royal and military politeness, courteous exchanges of uproar, signals of etiquette, formalities of roadsteads and citadels, sunrises and sunsets, saluted...
It combined corrupt simplicity with delicate ferocity, a curious variety of civilization; a tiger with a simper.
Indeed, what more could you want? A little garden to amble about in, and infinite space to dream in. At his feet, whatever could be grown and gathered; over his head, whatever could be studied and med...
Indeed, is not that all, and what more can be desired? A little garden to walk, and immensity to reflect on. At his feet something to cultivate and gather; above his head something to study and medita...