Joy is the reflex of terror.

The quantity of civilization is measured by the quality of imagination.

The mother...swinging the children by pulling on a length of string, while at the same time she kept and eye on them with that protective watchfulness, half animal, half angelic, which is the quality of motherhood.

Nothing is so stifling as symmetry. Symmetry is boredom, the quintessence of mourning. Despair yawns. There is something more terrible than a hell of suffering - a hell of boredom.

...there is a point when the unfortunate and the infamous are associated and confused in a word, a mortal word, les miserables

Wisdom is the health of the soul.

Night and the day, when united, Bring forth the beautiful light.