Joie est mon caractere, C'est la faute a Voltaire; Misere est mon trousseau C'est la faute a Rousseau. [Joy is my character, 'Tis the fault of Voltaire; Misery is my trousseau 'Tis the fault of Rousseau.] - Gavroche

The drama is complete poetry. The ode and the epic contain it only in germ; it contains both of them in a state of high development, and epitomizes both.

Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause.

Because a fact seems strange to you, you conclude that it is not one. ... All science, however, commences by being strange. Science is successive. It goes from one wonder to another. It mounts by a ladder. The science of to-day would seem extravagant to the science of a former time. Ptolemy would believe Newton mad.

The thirst for the Infinite proves infinity.

Of all the things that God has made, the human heart is the one which sheds the most light, alas! and the most darkness.

No man is more unhappy than the one who is never in adversity; the greatest affliction of life is never to be afflicted.