But alas, if I have not maintained my victory, it is God's fault for not making man and the devil of equal strength.

The owl goes not into the nest of the lark.

Marius was of the temperament that sinks into grief and remains there; Cosette was of the sort that plunges in and comes out again.

The soul has greater need of the ideal than of the real

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.

You ask me what forces me to speak? a strange thing; my conscience.

We shall look on crime as a disease, and its physicians shall displace the judges, its hospitals displace the Galleys. Liberty and health shall be alike. We shall pour balm and oil where we formerly applied iron and fire; evil will be treated in charity, instead of in anger. This change will be simple and sublime.