To a gargoyle on the ramparts of Notre Dame as Esmeralda rides off with Gringoire Quasimodo says. "Why was I not made of stone like thee?

Nothing is more dangerous than discontinued labor; it is habit lost. A habit easy to abandon, difficult to resume.

It is most pleasant to commit a just action which is disagreeable to someone whom one does not like.

There is will in the thought, there is none in the dream. The dream, which is completely spontaneous, takes and keeps, even in the gigantic and the ideal, the form of our mind. Nothing springs more directly and more sincerely from the very bottom of our souls than our unreflected and indefinite aspirations towards the splendours of destiny.

O youth! thou often tearest thy wings against the thorns of voluptuousness.

The brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over we realize this: that the human race has been roughly handled, but that it has advanced.

Because one doesn't like the way things are is no reason to be unjust towards God.