A benevolent malefactor, merciful, gentle, helpful, clement, a convict, returning good for evil, giving back pardon for hatred, preferring pity to vengeance, preferring to ruin himself rather than to ruin his enemy, saving him who had smitten him, kneeling on the heights of virtue, more nearly akin to an angel than to a man. Javert was constrained to admit to himself that this monster existed. Things could not go on in this manner.

Amnesty is as good for those who give it as for those who receive it. It has the admirable quality of bestowing mercy on both sides.

If you are stone, be magnetic; if a plant, be sensitive; but if you are human be love.

Science is continually correcting what it has said. Fertile corrections... science is a ladder... poetry is a winged flight... An artistic masterpiece exists for all time... Dante does not efface Homer.

There is suffering in the light; in excess it burns. Flame is hostile to the wing. To burn and yet to fly, this is the miracle of genius.

So long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Miserables cannot fail to be of use.

The earth is a great piece of stupidity.