It was time that this vast man should fall. The excessive weight of this man in human destiny disturbed the balance. This individual alone counted for more than a universal group. These plethoras of a...
It so happens that this is particular love was precisely the sort best suited to the state of her soul. It was a sort of remote worship, a mute contemplation, a deification by an unknown votary. It wa...
It is the accursed inventions of this century that are ruining everything--artilleries, bombards, and, above all, printing, that other German pest. No more manuscripts, no more books! printing will ki...
Is there anybody here? asked he, aloud and in a startled voice. Then he continued with a laugh, which was like the laugh of an idiot: What a fool I am! there cannot be anybody here.There was One; but...
In vain we chisel, as best we can, the mysterious block of which our life is made, the black vein of destiny reappears continuously.
In proportion as architecture degenerated, printing throve and flourished. The capital of forces which human thought had expended in building, it henceforth expended in books.
His judgement demonstrates that one can be a genius and understand nothing of an art that is not one's own.
He never went out without a book under his arm and he often came home with two.
He endeavored to collect his thoughts, but did not succeed. At those hours especially when we have sorest need of grasping the sharp realities of life do the threads of though snap off in the brain.
God can add nothing to the happiness of those who love, except to give them endless duration. After a life of love, an eternity of love is, in fact, an augmentation; but to increase in intensity even...
Gavroche had fallen only to rise again; he remained in a sitting posture, a long thread of blood streaked his face, he raised both arms in the air, glanced in the direction whence the shot had come, a...
From the point of view of history, of reason, and of truth, monasticism is condemned. Monasteries, when they abound in a nation, are clogs in its circulation, cumbrous establishments, centres of idlen...
Facts, however, are awkward things to disconcert, and they are obstinate. The author of this book has seen, with his own eyes, eight leagues distant from Brussels, — there are relics of the Middle Age...
Ecclesiastes calls you the All-powerful; the Maccabees call you the Creator; the Epistle to the Ephesians calls you liberty; Baruch calls you Immensity; the Psalms call you Wisdom and Truth; John call...
Each region of Paris is celebrated for the interesting treasures which are to be found there. There are ear-wigs in the timber-yards of the Ursulines, there are millepeds in the Pantheon, there are ta...
Each of our passions, even love, has a stomach that must not be overloaded. We must in everything write the word 'finis' in time; we must restrain ourselves, when it becomes urgent; we must draw the b...
Daring is the price of progress. All splendid conquests are the prize of boldness, more or less.
Certain forms are torn down, and it is well that they should be, but on condition that they are followed by reconstruction.
By continually going out for reverie, a day comes when you go out to drown yourself.
Aucun penseur n'oserait dire que le parfum de l'aubépine est inutile aux constellations.