Man does not understand nor accept immortality except on condition of self-remembrance.

The three great problems of this century; the degradation of man in the proletariat, the subjection of women through hunger, the atrophy of the child by darkness.

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.

The hatred of luxury is not an intelligent hatred. It implies a hatred of arts.

Wisdom is a sacred communion.

An increase of tenderness always ended by boiling over and turning to indignation. He was at the point where we seek to adopt a course, and to accept what tears us apart.

That is to be two and to be but one. A man and a woman mingled into one angel. It is heaven.