Do not forget, do not ever forget, that you have promised me to use the money to make yourself an honest man.' Valjean, who did not recall having made any promise, was silent. The bishop had spoken the words slowly and deliberately. He concluded with a solemn emphasis: Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to what is evil but to what is good. I have bought your soul to save it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God.

Labor is life; thought is light.

We should judge a man much more surely from what he dreams than from what he thinks.

Should we continue to look upwards? Is the light we can see in the sky one of those which will presently be extinguished? The ideal is terrifying to behold... brilliant but threatened on all sides by the dark forces that surround it: nevertheless, no more in danger than a star in the jaws of the clouds.

In love, such a word, whispered, is a mysterious kiss of the soul to the soul.

The paradise of the rich is made out of the hell of the poor.

True thinkers are characterized by a blending of clearness and mystery.