What is said about men often has as much influence upon their lives, and especially upon their destinies, as what they do.

Marius was of the temperament that sinks into grief and remains there; Cosette was of the sort that plunges in and comes out again.

They say love is blindness of heart; I say not to love is blindness.

The earlier works of a man of genius are always preferred to the newer ones, in order to prove that he is going down instead of up.

I write with one hand, but I fight with both.

Gavroche had fallen only to rise again; he sat up, a long stream of blood rolled down his face, he raised both arms in air, looked in the direction whence the shot came, and began to sing.

Thus, during those nineteen years of torture and slavery, did this soul rise and fall at the same time. Light entered on the one side, and darkness on the other.