“Love is a religion, and its rituals cost more than those of other religions. It goes by quickly and, like a street urchin, it likes to mark its passage by a trail of devastation.”

“Passion is univeral humanity. Without it religion history art and romance would be useless.”

“All humanity is passion; without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual.”

“True love is eternal, infinite and always like itself. It's always equal and pure. Without violent demonstrations: It is seen with white hairs and is always young at heart.”

“A valley full of genuine suffering, and of joys that often turn out to be false, and so incredibly tumultuous that it takes something God only knows how outrageous to cause a lasting stir. But here and there some immense heaping up of vices and virtues turns mere sorrow grand and solemn, and their very sight makes even selfishness and personal advantage stop and feel pity - though that notion of pity is much like some tasty fruit that gets gobbled right up. Civilization's high-riding chariot, like the believer-crushing car of the idol Juggernaut, barely slows down when it comes to a heart a bit harder to crack, and if such a heart gets in the way it's pretty quickly smashed, and on goes the glorious march.[...]After you've read all about Pere Goriot's miserable secrets, you'll have yourself a good dinner and blame your indifference on the author, scolding him for exaggeration, accusing him of having waxed poetic. Ah, but let me tell you: this drama is not fictional, it's not a novel. All is true - so true you'll be able to recognize everything that goes into it in your own life, perhaps even in your heart.”

“Soon this mass of ideas became harmonized, took life, seemed, as it were, to become a living individual and moved in the midst of those domains of fancy, where the soul loves to give full rein to its wild creations.”

“Surely a man must be in a parlours state to excite pity, extremely weak to inspire sympathy, or very evil-looking to make a soul tremble in a den like this, where pain must hold its tongue, poverty remain cheerful, and despair retain its self respect.”