“To be perfectly happy it does not suffice to possess happiness, it is necessary to have deserved it.”
“The supreme ordeal, let us say rather, the only ordeal, is the loss of the beloved being.”
“Philosophy is the microscope of thought. Everything desires to flee from it, but nothing escapes it.”
“Revolutions spring not from accident, but from necessity. A revolution is a return from the factitious to the real. It takes place because it must.”
“Love, thine is the future. Death, I use thee, but I hate thee. Citizens, there shall be in the future neither darkness nor thunderbolts; neither ferocious ignorance nor blood for blood.”
“Dying is nothing. What's terrible is not to live.”
“Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats.”
“To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.”
“A queen, devoid of beauty is not queen;She needs the royalty of beauty's mien.”
“The most excellent symbol of the people is the paving stone. One walks on it until it falls on one's head.”
“There is nothing like a dream to create the future.”
“Emotion is always new.”
“Let us study things that are no more. It is necessary to understand them, if only to avoid them.”
“I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses.”
“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.”
“The hatred of luxury is not an intelligent hatred. It implies a hatred of arts.”
“Men are still men. The despot's wickedness Comes of ill teaching, and of power's excess,-- Comes of the purple he from childhood wears, Slaves would be tyrants if the chance were theirs.”
“When the heart is dry the eye is dry.”
“Is it not when the fall is the lowest that charity ought to be the greatest?”
“The miserable's name is Man; he is agonizing in all climes, and he is groaning in all languages.”
“There are fathers who do not love their children; there is no grandfather who does not adore his grandson.”
“There are people who observe the rules of honor as one observes the stars, from a great distance.”
“My day's work will begin again the next morning. The tomb is not a blind alley.”
“All animals are to be found in men and each of theme exists in some man, sometimes several at the time.”
“The realities of life do not allow themselves to be forgotten.”
