The sewer is the conscience of the city.

A joyous little creature, so beautiful, It was as if a gate of Heaven opened as she came in.

In the animal world no creature born to be a dove turns into a scavenger. This happens only among men.

Let us leave to the brain what belongs to it, and agree that the work of the men of genius is of the superhuman, the offspring of man.

That men saw his mask, but the bishop saw his face. That men saw his life, but the bishop saw his conscience.

Do you know what friendship is... it is to be brother and sister; two souls which touch without mingling, two fingers on one hand.

The book which the reader now holds in his hands, from one end to the other, as a whole and in its details, whatever gaps, exceptions, or weaknesses it may contain, treats of the advance from evil to good, from injustice to justice, from falsity to truth, from darkness to daylight, from blind appetite to conscience, from decay to life, from bestiality to duty, from Hell to Heaven, from limbo to God. Matter itself is the starting-point, and the point of arrival is the soul. Hydra at the beginning, an angel at the end.