Marius and Cosette were in the dark in regard to each other. They did not speak, they did not bow, they were not acquainted; they saw each other; and, like the stars in the sky separated by millions of leagues, they lived by gazing upon each other.

Amnesty is as good for those who give it as for those who receive it. It has the admirable quality of bestowing mercy on both sides.

Loving is almost a substitute for thinking. Love is a burning forgetfulness of all other things. How shall we ask passion to be logical?

The human soul has still greater need of the ideal than of the real. It is by the real that we exist; it is by the ideal that we live.

He is the best gentleman that is the son of his own deserts, and not the degenerated heir of another's virtue.

I had a dream my life would be different from this hell I am living, so different from what it seemed. Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

There is one spectacle grander than the sea, That is the sky.