The most excellent symbol of the people is the paving stone. One walks on it until it falls on one's head.
If you are stone, be magnetic; if a plant, be sensitive; but if you are human be love.
The convent, which belongs to the West as it does to the East, to antiquity as it does to the present time, to Buddhism and Muhammadanism as it does to Christianity, is one of the optical devices whereby man gains a glimpse of infinity.
We should judge a man much more surely from what he dreams than from what he thinks.
Another story must begin!
If he had had all Peru in his pocket, he would certainly have given it to this dancer; but Gringoire had not Peru in his pocket; and besides, America was not yet discovered. (p. 66)