To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.

There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.

The future has several names. For the weak, it is impossible; for the fainthearted, it is unknown; but for the valiant, it is ideal.

A benevolent malefactor, merciful, gentle, helpful, clement, a convict, returning good for evil, giving back pardon for hatred, preferring pity to vengeance, preferring to ruin himself rather than to ruin his enemy, saving him who had smitten him, kneeling on the heights of virtue, more nearly akin to an angel than to a man. Javert was constrained to admit to himself that this monster existed. Things could not go on in this manner.

A house is built of logs and stone, of tiles and posts and piers; a home is built of loving deeds that stand a thousand years.

Nothing is more imminent than the impossible . . . what we must always foresee is the unforeseen.

The quantity of civilization is measured by the quality of imagination.