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.

A mother's arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them.

A house is built of logs and stone, of tiles and posts and piers; a home is built of loving deeds that stand a thousand years.

A saint addicted to excessive self-abnegation is a dangerous associate; he may infect you with poverty, and a stiffening of those joints which are needed for advancement-in a word, with more renunciation than you care for-and so you flee the contagion.

At the moment when her eyes closed, when all feeling vanished in her, she thought that she felt a touch of fire imprinted on her lips, a kiss more burning than the red-hot iron of the executioner.

I think I missed my calling. I should have been an interior decorator.

No army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come.