"It is God who makes woman beautiful it is the devil who makes her pretty."

"Strange to say, the luminous world is the invisible world; the luminous world is that which we do not see. Our eyes of flesh see only night."

"It is not easy to keep silent when silence is a lie."

"Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human race."

"The peculiarity of sunrise is to make us laugh at all our terrors of the night, and our laugh is always proportioned to the fear we have had."

"Death has its revelations: the great sorrows which open the heart open the mind as well; light comes to us with our grief. As for me, I have faith; I believe in a future life. How could I do otherwise? My daughter was a soul; I saw this soul. I touched it, so to speak."

"Mother's arms are made of tenderness, and sweet sleep blesses the child who lies within."

"...Nobody knows like a woman how to say things that are both sweet and profound. Sweetness and depth, this is all of woman; this is Heaven."

"It is from books that wise people derive consolation in the troubles of life."

"And do you know Monsieur Marius? I believe I was a little in love with you."

"One is not idle because one is absorbed. There is both visible and invisible labor. To contemplate is to toil, to think is to do. The crossed arms work, the clasped hands act. The eyes upturned to Heaven are an act of creation."

"When your day has been teeming with different sensations, when you have things on your mind, you can get to sleep to start with but you can't get back to sleep. Sleep comes a lot more easily than it comes back."

"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 you will see the living light of your dearly loved departed up above in heaven."

"Happiness lies for those who cry, those who hurt, those who have searched, and those who have tried for only they can appreciate the importance of people who have touched their lives."

"I am an intelligent river which has reflected successively all the banks before which it has flowed by meditating only on the images offered by those changing shores."

"To commit the least possible sin is the law for man. To live without sin is the dream of an angel. Everything terrestrial is subject to sin. Sin is a gravitation."

"There is no such thing as a little country. The greatness of a people is no more determined by their numbers than the greatness of a man is by his height."

"Suffering engenders passion; and while the prosperous blind themselves, or go to sleep, the hatred of the unfortunate classes kindles its torch at some sullen or ill-constituted mind, which is dreaming in a corner, and sets to work to examine society. The examination of hatred is a terrible thing.Suffering begets rage, and while the prosperous turn a blind eye, or nod off which is always the same thing as shutting your eyes, the hate of the unprosperous masses has hits torch lit by some malcontent or warped mind dreaming away in a corner, somewhere, and it begins to examine society. Examination by hate is a terrible thing."

"What would be ugly in a garden constitutes beauty in a mountain."

"A criminal remains a criminal whether he uses a convict's suit or a monarch's crown."

"This is what men call genius, just as they call a painted face beauty and a richly attired figure majesty. The confound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud."

"I am he who cometh out of the depths. My lords, you are great and rich. There lies your danger. You profit by the night; but beware! The dawn is all-powerful. You cannot prevail over it. It is coming. Nay! it is come. Within it is the day-spring of irresistible light. And who shall hinder that sling from hurling the sun into the sky. The sun I speak of is Right. You are Privilege. Tremble!"

"True or false, that which is set of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do."

"Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent."

"The women laughed and wept; the crowd stamped their feet enthusiastically, for at that moment Quasimodo was really beautiful. He was handsome - this orphan, this foundling, this outcast."

"This is one of those rare moments when, while doing that which it is one's duty to do, one feels something which disconcerts one, and which would dissuade one from proceeding further; one persists, it is necessary, but conscience, though satisfied, is sad, and the accomplishment of duty is complicated with a pain at the heart."

"Reason is intelligence taking exercise. Imagination is intelligence with an erection."

"Ever since history has been written, ever since philosophy has meditated, misery has been the garment of the human race."

"Equality, citizens, is not the whole of society on a level, a society of tall blades of grass and small oaks, or a number of entangled jealousies. It is, legally speaking, every aptitude having the same opportunity for a career; politically all consciences having the same right. Equality has an organ, gratuitous and compulsory education. We must begin with the right to the alphabet."

"His brain was in one of those states that are both violent and yet frighteningly calm, in which thought runs so deep it blots out reality. You no longer see the objects around you, yet you can see the shapes in your mind as thought they are outside your body."

"I propose a toast to mirth; be merry! Let us complete our course of law by folly and eating! Indigestion and the digest. let Justinian be the male, and Feasting, the female! Joy the depths! Live, O creation! The world is a great diamond. I am happy. The birds are astonishing. What a festival everywhere! The nightingale is a gratuitous Elleviou.Summer, I salute thee!"

"Idleness is the heaviest of all oppressions."

"Night sometimes lends such tragic assistance to catastrophe."

"Doing nothing is happiness for children and misery for old men."

"It is not enough to be happy, one must be content."

"Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled. From that divine tear and from that human smile is derived the grace of present civilization."

"To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further, There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life."

"Evil. Mistrust those who rejoice at it even more than those who do it."

"To think is of itself to be useful; it is always and in all cases a striving toward God."

"There is neither a foreign war nor a civil war, there is only just and unjust war."

"Every man who has in his soul a secret feeling of revolt against any act of the State, of life, or of destiny, is on the verge of riot; and so soon as it appears, he begins to quiver, and to feel himself borne away by the whirlwind."

"If people did not love one another, I really don't see what use there would be in having any spring."

"Habit is the nursery of errors."

"Let us admit, without bitterness, that the individual has his distinct interests and can, without felony, stipulate for those interests and defend them. The present has its pardonable amount of egotism; momentary life has its claims, and cannot be expected to sacrifice itself incessantly to the future. The generation which is in its turn passing over the earth is not forced to abridge its life for the sake of the generations, its equals after all, whose turn shall come later on."

"Toleration is the best religion."

"Hope is the word which God has written on the brow of every man."

"Pain is as diverse as man. One suffers as one can."

"Every day has its great grief or its small anxiety. ... One cloud is dispelled, another forms. There is hardly one day in a hundred of real joy and bright sunshine."

"Rhyme, that enslaved queen, that supreme charm of our poetry, that creator of our meter."

"The true division of humanity is this: the luminous and the dark.To diminish the number of the dark, to increase the number of the luminous, there is the aim.That is why we cry: education, knowledge! to learn to read is to kindle a fire; every syllable spelled sparkles.But whoever say light does not necessarily say joy.There is suffering in light; an excess burns. Flames is hostile to the wing. To burn and yet to fly, this is the miracle of genius."