The wise man does not grow old, but ripens.

If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness.

Between the government which does evil and the people who accept it - there is a certain shameful solidarity.

The mother...swinging the children by pulling on a length of string, while at the same time she kept and eye on them with that protective watchfulness, half animal, half angelic, which is the quality of motherhood.

He was at his own request and through his own complicity driven out of all his happinesses one after the other; and he had this sorrow, that after having lost Cosette wholly in one day, he was afterwards obliged to lose her again in detail.

When we are at the end of life, to die means to go away; when we are at the beginning, to go away means to die.

Love is like a tree, it grows of its own accord, it puts down deep roots into our whole being.