As a means of contrast with the sublime, the grotesque is, in our view, the richest source that nature can offer.

Short as life is, we make it still shorter by the careless waste of time.

Daring is the price of progress. All splendid conquests are the prize of boldness, more or less.

Forget not, never forget that you have promised me to use this silver to become an honest man.... Jean Valjean, my brother: you belong no longer to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I am buying for you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God!

God made the water but men made the wine.

All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come.

For there are many great deeds done in the small struggles of life.