"To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark."

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

"Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees."

"Reason is intelligence taking exercise. Imagination is intelligence with an erection."

"People do not lack strength, they lack will."

"You ask me what forces me to speak? a strange thing; my conscience."

"You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love, is to live by it."

"He who opens a school door, closes a prison."

"Nothing makes a man so adventurous as an empty pocket."

"Life's great happiness is to be convinced we are loved."

"A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible labor and there is invisible labor."

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

"There is nothing like a dream to create the future."

"He was fond of books, for they are cool and sure friends"

"An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise."

"There is something more terrible than a hell of suffering--a hell of boredom."

"The future has several names. For the weak, it is impossible; for the fainthearted, it is unknown; but for the valiant, it is ideal."

"The pupil dilates in darkness and in the end finds light, just as the soul dilates in misfortune and in the end finds God."

"...Nobody knows like a woman how to say things that are both sweet and profound. Sweetness and depth, this is all of woman; this is Heaven."

"Love is the foolishness of men, and the wisdom of God."

"To die for lack of love is horrible. The asphyxia of the soul."

"I have been loving you a little more every minute since this morning."

"Melancholy is the happiness of being sad."

"Let us study things that are no more. It is necessary to understand them, if only to avoid them."

"There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher."

"Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart."

"A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in--what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars."

"It is not easy to keep silent when silence is a lie."

"What a grand thing, to be loved! What a grander thing still, to love!"

"What makes night within us may leave stars."

"And remember, the truth that once was spoken: To love another person is to see the face of God."

"And remember, the truth that once was spoken: To love another person is to see the face of God."

"Not seeing people permits us to imagine them with every perfection."

"There are no weeds, and no worthless men. There are only bad farmers."

"If you wish to understand what Revolution is, call it Progress; and if you wish to understand what Progress is, call it Tomorrow."

"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."