Les Mis C3 A9rables Quotes & Sayings

Why comes there an hour when we leave this azure, and why does life continue afterwards? — Victor Hugo

To breathe Paris is to preserve one's soul. — Victor Hugo

If no one loved, the sun would go out. — Victor Hugo

You always have everything better than the rest, even pain. — Victor Hugo

He thought of that heroic Colonel Pontmercy ... who had left upon every field of victory in Europe drops of that same blood which he, Marius, had in his veins, who had grown grey before his time in discipline and in command, who had lived with his sword-belt buckled, his epaulets falling on his breast, his cockade blackened by powder, his forehead wrinkled by the cap, in the barracks, in the camp, in the bivouac, in the ambulance, and who after twenty years had returned from the great wars with his cheek scarred, his face smiling, simple, tranquil, admirable, pure as a child, having done everything for France and nothing against her. — Victor Hugo

For the rest, he was the same to all men, the fashionable world and the ordinary people. He judged nothing in haste, or without taking account of the cirumstances. He said, 'Let me see how the fault arose. — Victor Hugo

That it was no doubt a dark hour, but that he should get through it; that after all he held his destiny, evil as it might be, in his own hand; that he was master of it. He clung to that thought. — Victor Hugo

It was like a hand which had opened and thrown suddenly upon her a handful of sunbeams. — Victor Hugo

One would have called it a luminous wound. — Victor Hugo

In the chaos of sentiments and passions which defend a barricade, there is something of everything; there is bravery, youth, honor, enthusiasm, the ideal, conviction, the eager fury of the gamester, and above all, intervals of hope. — Victor Hugo

Do not ask the name of the person who asks you for a bed for a night. He whose name is a burden to him needs shelter more than any one. — Victor Hugo

Oh! if the good hearts had the fat purses, how much better everything would go! — Victor Hugo

Let us show that, if the people abandon the republicans, the republicans do not abandon the people. — Victor Hugo

One does not cross-examine a saint. — Victor Hugo

It is a mournful task to break the sombre attachments of the past. — Victor Hugo

Darks drifts covered the horizon. A strange shadow approaching nearer and nearer, was spreading little by little over men, over things, over ideas; a shadow which came from indignations and from systems. All that had been hurriedly stifled was stirring and fermenting. Sometimes the conscious of the honest man caught its breath, there was so much confusion in that air in which sophisms were mingled with truths. Minds trembled in the social anxiety like leaves at the approach of the storm. The electric tension was so great that at certain moments any chance-comer, thought unknown, flashed out. Then the twilight darkness fell again. At intervals, deep and sullen mutterings enabled men to judge of the amount of lightning in the cloud. — Victor Hugo

For men felt therein the presence of that great human thing which is called law, and that great divine thing which is called justice. — Victor Hugo

He was troubled; this brain, so limpid in its blindness, had lost its transparency; there was a cloud in this crystal. — Victor Hugo

All that he might have felt of love in his entire life melted into a sort of ineffable radiance. — Victor Hugo

Now life has killed the dream I dreamed. — Victor Hugo

Love is a fault; be it so. Fantine was innocence floating upon the surface of this fault. — Victor Hugo

He asked himself ... whether it was not outrageous for society to treat thus precisely those of its members who were the least well endowed in the division of goods made by chance, and consequently the most deserving of consideration. — Victor Hugo

Brothers, he who dies here dies in the radiance of the future, and we are entering a tomb all flooded with the dawn. — Victor Hugo

Never, even among animals, does the creature born to be a dove change into an osprey. That is only seen among men. — Victor Hugo

He plainly perceived this truth, the basis of his life henceforth, that so long as she should be alive, so long as he should have her with him, he should need nothing except for her, and fear nothing save on her account. — Victor Hugo

One can say that Javert is our conscience. The ever lurking presence of the law and our own condemnation. The tension between who we were and who we are and who we can be. Javert represents that inescapable, shameful past that forever haunts and persues one's conscience. Javert is the man of the law, and ... There are no surprises with the law. The principle of retribution is simple and monotonous, like Euclidean logic. It's closed to all alternatives and shut up against divine or human intervention ... Indeed, Javert represents the merciless application of the law, the blind Justice that in the end is befuddled by hope and the possibility of redemption without punishment. — Cristiane Serruya

The night was starless and very dark. Without doubt, in the gloom some mighty angel was standing, with outstretched wings, awaiting the soul. — Victor Hugo

Monsieur, innocence is its own crown! Innocence has only to act to be noble! She is as august in rags as fleur de lys. — Victor Hugo

A bird alone could have extricated himself from that place. — Victor Hugo

Cosette, by learning that she was beautiful, lost the grace of not knowing it; an exquisite grace, for beauty heightened by artlessness is ineffable, and nothing is so adorable as dazzling innocence, going on her way, and holding in her hand, all unconsciousness, the key of a paradise. — Victor Hugo

Eponine and Azelma did not notice Cosette. To them she was like the dog. These three little girls could not count twenty-four years among them all, and they already represented all human society; on one side envy, on the other disdain. — Victor Hugo

That you are happy, that Monsieur Pontmercy has Cosette, that youth espouses mourning, that there are about you, my children, lilacs and nightingales, that your life is a beautiful lawn in the sunshine, that all the enchantments of heaven fill your souls, and now, that I who am good for nothing, that I die; surely all this is well. — Victor Hugo