Hope is a delusion; no hand can grasp a wave or a shadow.

Why worry about what threatens our heads or purses? Let us think instead of what threatens our souls.

M. Myriel had to undergo the fate of every newcomer in a little town, where there are many mouths which talk, and very few heads which think.

To rise from error to truth is rare and beautiful.

Inanimate objects sometimes appear endowed with a strange power of sight. A statue notices, a tower watches, the face of an edifice contemplates.

Science says the first word on everything, and the last word on nothing.

To rove about, musing, that is to say loitering, is, for a philosopher, a good way of spending time.