Do you know what friendship is?' he asked. 'Yes,' replied the gypsy; 'it is to be brother and sister; two souls which touch without mingling, two fingers on one hand.' 'And love?' pursued Gringoire. 'Oh! love!' said she, and her voice trembled, and her eye beamed. 'That is to be two and to be but one. A man and a woman mingled into one angel. It is heaven.

Melancholy is the happiness of being sad.

To lie a little is not possible: he who lies, lies the whole lie.

The convent, which belongs to the West as it does to the East, to antiquity as it does to the present time, to Buddhism and Muhammadanism as it does to Christianity, is one of the optical devices whereby man gains a glimpse of infinity.

There must be people who pray even for those who never pray.

Rhyme, that enslaved queen, that supreme charm of our poetry, that creator of our meter.

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