I exist," murmurs someone whose name is Everyone. "I'm young and in love; I am old and I want rest; I work, I prosper, I do good business, I have houses to rent, money in State Securities; I am happy, I have wife and children; I like all these things and I want to go on living, so leave me alone."... There are moments when all this casts a deep chill on the large-minded pioneers of the human race.

Do not forget, do not ever forget, that you have promised me to use the money to make yourself an honest man.' Valjean, who did not recall having made any promise, was silent. The bishop had spoken the words slowly and deliberately. He concluded with a solemn emphasis: Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to what is evil but to what is good. I have bought your soul to save it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God.

To meditate is to labour; to think is to act. Folded arms work, closed hands perform, a gaze fixed on heaven is a toil.

We are all under sentence of death, but with a sort of indefinite reprieve.

Phenomena intersect; to see but one is to see nothing.

If I speak, I am condemned. If I stay silent, I am damned!

Lastly, this threefold poetry flows from three great sources - The Bible, Homer, Shakespeare.... The Bible before the Iliad, the Iliad before Shakespeare.