Melancholy is the pleasure of being sad.

Strange to say, the luminous world is the invisible world; the luminous world is that which we do not see. Our eyes of flesh see only night.

There is no more sovereign eloquence than the truth in indignation.

Who can be sure that Jean Valjean had not been on the verge of losing heart and giving up the struggle? In loving he recovered his strength. But the truth is that he was no less vulnerable than Cosette. He protected her and she sustained him. Thanks to him she could go forward into life, and thanks to her he could continue virtous. He was the child's support and she his mainstay. Sublime, unfathomable marvel of the balance of destiny!

Revery, which is thought in its nebulous state, borders closely upon the land of sleep, by which it is bounded as by a natural frontier.

My tastes are aristocratic, my actions democratic.

Youth, even in its sorrows, always has a brilliancy of its own.