"Let us sacrifice one day to gain perhaps a whole life."

"If people did not love one another, I really don't see what use there would be in having any spring."

"Diamonds are to be found only in the darkness of the earth, and truth in the darkness of the mind."

"...But listen, there will be more joy in heaven over the tears of a repentant sinner than over the white robes of a hundred just men."

"If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness. (Monseigneur Bienvenu in _Les Miserables_)"

"What is said about men often has as much influence upon their lives, and especially upon their destinies, as what they do."

"When you get an idea into your head you find it in everything."

"Be like the bird that, passing on her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings."

"Love is the only future God offers."

"For there are many great deeds done in the small struggles of life."

"The beautiful is as useful as the useful." He added after a moment’s silence, "Perhaps more so."

"He did not study God; he was dazzled by him."

"There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul."

"Every bird that flies has the thread of the infinite in its claw."

"The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves—say rather, loved in spite of ourselves."

"Common sense is in spite of, not the result of, education."

"Fashions have done more harm than revolutions."

"Faith is necessary to men; woe to him who believes in nothing!"

"Nothing is more imminent than the impossible . . . what we must always foresee is the unforeseen."

"He loved books; books are cold but safe friends."

"Being good is easy, what is difficult is being just."

"And do you know Monsieur Marius? I believe I was a little in love with you."

"Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet."

"God knows better than we do what we need."

"The realities of life do not allow themselves to be forgotten."

"Mothers arms are made of tenderness, And sweet sleep blesses the child who lies therein."

"To die is nothing; but it is terrible not to live."

"Life is a theatre set in which there are but few practicable entrances."

"Nobody loves the light like the blind man."

"What happened between those two beings? Nothing. They were adoring one another."

"...mothers are often fondest of the child which has caused them the greatest pain."

"It is from books that wise people derive consolation in the troubles of life."

"Curiosity is gluttony. To see is to devour."

"A man without a woman is like a pistol without a trigger; it is the woman who makes the man go off."

"This first glance of a soul which does not yet know itself is like dawn in the heavens; it is the awakening of something radiant and unknown."

"A one-eyed man is much more incomplete than a blind man, for he knows what it is that's lacking."

"Success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit.... They confound the brilliance of the firmament with the star-shaped footprints of a duck in the mud."

"Life is the flower for which love is the honey."

"Sleep comes more easily than it returns."

"Sleep comes more easily than it returns."

"It was SHE. Whoever has loved knows all the radiant meaning contained in the three letters of this word ‘she."

"Gavroche had fallen only to rise again; he sat up, a long stream of blood rolled down his face, he raised both arms in air, looked in the direction whence the shot came, and began to sing."

"England has two books, the Bible and Shakespeare. England made Shakespeare,but the Bible made England."

"As with stomachs, we should pity minds that do not eat."

"Morality is truth in full bloom."

"Be happy without picking flaws."

"The quantity of civilization is measured by the quality of imagination."

"I was dying when you came."

"I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat was threadbare - there were holes at his elbows; the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul."

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