Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

"As for methods of prayer, all are good, as long as they are sincere."

"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."

"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."

"Every day has its great grief or its small anxiety. ... One cloud is dispelled, another forms. There is hardly one day in a hundred of real joy and bright sunshine."

"To love another person is to see the face of God."

"Be happy without picking flaws."

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

"Sin is a gravitation."

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

"Not being heard is no reason for silence."

"Love is the only future God offers."

"Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over, this is recognised: that the human race has been harshly treated, but that it has advanced."

"It is nothing to die. It is frightful not to live."

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

"...Man has a tyrant, ignorance. I voted for the demise of that particular tyrant. That particular tyrant has engendered royalty, which is authority based on falsehood, whereas science is authority based on truth. Man should be governed by science alone.""And conscience,"added the bishop."It's the same thing. Conscience is the quota of innate science we each have inside us."

"where the telescope ends the microscope begins, and who can say which has the wider vision?"

"He never went out without a book under his arm, and he often came back with two."

"À ceux qui ignorent, enseignez-leur [...]Le coupable n'est pas celui qui y fait le péché, mais celui qui y a fait l'ombre."

"The poor man shuddered, overflowed with an angelic joy; he declared in his transport that this would last through life; he said to himself that he really had not suffered enough to deserve such radiant happiness, and he thanked God, in the depths of his soul, for having permitted that he, a miserable man, should be so loved by this innocent being."