Neither was to blame for the way they felt, because Marius was someone who embraces sorry and dwells in it, but Cosette felt it deeply but recovered.

Every skull-cap may dream of the tiara. The priest is nowadays the only man who can become a king in a regular manner; and what a king! the supreme king.

If a man has his throat cut in Paris its a murder. If people are murdered in the east it is a question.

Society absolutely must look into these things since they are its own work.

We have here very high towers; a man who should fall from one would be dead before he touched the pavement; when it shall please you to have me to fall, you will not have to even utter a word, a glance will suffice.

The pupil dilates in the night, and at last finds day in it, even as the soul dilates in misfortune, and at last finds God in it.

That there should be so great a concentration of vitality, so large a world contained within the mind of a single man, must in the end have been fatal to civilisation.