The miserable's name is Man; he is agonizing in all climes, and he is groaning in all languages.

Let us study things that are no more. It is necessary to understand them, if only to avoid them.

As with stomachs, we should pity minds that do not eat.

Ah," cried Gavroche, "what does this mean? It rains again! ...If this continues, I withdraw my subscription.

The sunshine was delightful, the foliage gently astir, more from the activity of birds than from the breeze. One gallant little bird, doubtless lovelorn, was singing his heart out at the top of a tall tree.

In the vast cosmical changes, the universal life comes and goes in unknown quantities, ... sowing an animalcule here, crumbling a star there, oscillating and ... entangling, from the highest to the lowest, all activities in the obscurity of a dizzying mechanism, hanging the flight of an insect upon the movement of the earth... Enormous gearing, whose first motor is the gnat, and whose last wheel is the zodiac.

True thinkers are characterized by a blending of clearness and mystery.