God has set his intentions in the flowers, in the dawn, in the spring, it is his will that we should love.

Philosophy is the microscope of thought. Everything desires to flee from it, but nothing escapes it.

Homer is one of the men of genius who solve that fine problem of art - the finest of all, perhaps - truly to depict humanity by the enlargement of man: that is, to generate the real in the ideal.

He was at his own request and through his own complicity driven out of all his happinesses one after the other; and he had this sorrow, that after having lost Cosette wholly in one day, he was afterwards obliged to lose her again in detail.

Be happy without picking flaws.

Here we stop. Upon the threshold of wedding nights stands an angel smiling, his finger on his lip.

The hatred of luxury is not an intelligent hatred. It implies a hatred of arts.