222 quotes found
“The poor young man must work for his bread; he eats; when he has eaten, he has nothing left but reverie. He enters God's theater free; he sees the sky, space, the stars, the flowers, the children, ...”
“The judge speaks in the name of justice,' he said. 'The priest speaks in the name of pity, which is only a higher form of justice.' (Bishop Myriel)”
“He sought...to transform the grief which looks down into the grave by showing it the grief which looks up to the stars.”
“When you shall have learned to know, and to love, you will still suffer. The day is born in tears. The luminous weep, if only over those in darkness.”
“Ecclesiastes names thee Almighty, the Maccabees name thee Creator, the Epistle to the Ephesians names thee Liberty, Baruch names thee Immensity, the Psalms name thee Wisdom and Truth, John names th...”
“And do you know Monsieur Marius? I believe I was a little in love with you.”
“If they had had a different neighbour, one less sel-absorbed and more concerned for others, a man of normal, charitable instincts, their desperate state would not have gone unnoticed, their distres...”
“This is the shade of difference: the door of the physician should never be shut, the door of the priest should always be open.”
“Happy, even in anguish, is he to whom God has given a soul worthy of love and grief! He who has not seen the things of this world, and the heart of men in this double light, has seen nothing, and k...”
“Slowly he took out the clothes in which, ten years beforem Cosette had left Montfermeil; first the little dress, then the black scarf, then the great heavy child's shoes Cosette could still almost ...”
“The sadness which reigned everywhere was but an excuse for unfailing kindness.”
“What is more melancholy and more profound than to see a thousand objects for the first and the last time? To travel is to be born and to die at every instant...”
“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 ...”
“Oh! if the good hearts had the fat purses, how much better everything would go!”
“A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in--what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.”
“Death belongs only to God. What right have men to lay hands on a thing so unknown?”
“This cavern is below all, and the enemy of all; it is hatred, without exception.”
“With the exercise of a little care, the nettle could be made useful; it is neglected and it becomes hurtful. It is exterminated. How many men resemble the nettle!" He added with a pause: "Remember ...”
“It is a mournful task to break the sombre attachments of the past.”
“As for us, we respect the past here and there, and we spare it, above all, provided that it consents to be dead. If it insists on being alive, we attack it, and we try to kill it.”
