91 quotes
Happy, even in anguish, is he to whom God has given a soul worthy of love and of grief!
Les Misérables (1862)
One can no more pray too much than love too much.
Les Misérables (1862)
The best way to worship God is to love your wife.
Les Misérables (1862)
To love or to have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life. To love is a consummation.
Les Misérables (1862)
To put everything in balance is good, to put everything in harmony is better.
Ninety-Three (1874)
Cimourdain knew everything and nothing. He knew everything about science, and nothing at all about life. Hence his inflexibility.
Ninety-Three (1874)
Il y a maintenant en France dans chaque village un flambeau allumé, le maître d'école, et une bouche qui souffle dessus, le curé.
Histoire d'un crime. Déposition d'un témoin (1877)
Cimourdain believed that, in social geneses, the extreme point is the solid earth; an error peculiar to minds which replace reason with logic.
Ninety-Three (1874)
There shall be no slavery of the mind.
Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars. Cimourdain was full of virtues and truth, but they shine out of a dark background.
Ninety-Three (1874)
To divinise is human, to humanise is divine.
Les feuilles d'automne (1831)
I will be Chateaubriand or nothing.
Written at the age of 15 in one of his notebooks (1817)
Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.
The production of souls is the secret of unfathomable depth.
Curiosity is one form of feminine bravery.
One resists the invasion of armies; one does not resist the invasion of ideas.
At the hour of civilization through which we are now passing, and which is still so sombre, the miserable's name is Man; he is agonizing in all climes, and he is groaning in all languages.
Letter To M. Daelli on Les Misérables (1862)
Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.
William Shakespeare (1864)
Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees.
The onward march of the human race requires that the heights around it constantly blaze with noble lessons of courage. Deeds of daring dazzle history and form one of man's guiding lights.
Les Misérables (1862)