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

Doing nothing is happiness for children and misery for old men.

Gavroche had fallen only to rise again; he sat up, a long stream of blood rolled down his face, he raised both arms in air, looked in the direction whence the shot came, and began to sing.

God has bestowed two gifts on man: hope and ignorance. Ignorance is the better of the two.

Love has no middle term; either it destroys, or it saves. All human destiny is this dilemma. This dilemma, destruction or salvation, no fate proposes more inexorably than love. Love is life, if it is not death. Cradle; coffin, too. The same sentiment says yes and no in the human heart. Of all the things God has made, the human heart is the one that sheds most light, and alas! most night.

There is nothing like a dream to create the future.

Woman, nude, is the blue sky. Clouds and garments are an obstacle to contemplation. Beauty and infinity would be gazed upon unveiled.