Superstitions, bigotries, hypocrisies, prejudices, these phantoms, phantoms though they be, cling to life; they have teeth and nails in their shadowy substance, and we must grapple with them individually and make war on them without truce; for it is one of humanity's inevitabilities to be condemned to eternal struggle with phantoms.

One believes others will do what he will do to himself.

The peasants of the Asturias believe that in every litter of wolves there is one pup that is killed by the mother for fear that on growing up it would devour the other little ones.

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.

...there is a point when the unfortunate and the infamous are associated and confused in a word, a mortal word, les miserables

If I speak, I am condemned. If I stay silent, I am damned!

A few feet under the ground reigns so profound a silence, and yet so much tumult on the surface!