“Fex urbis, lex orbis" (The dregs of the city, the law of the earth), from Les Miserables, attributed to St. Jerome”

“So long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Miserables cannot fail to be of use.”

“Les miserables”

“there is a point when the unfortunate and the infamous are associated and confused in a word, a mortal word, les miserables”

“Table talk and Lovers' talk equally elude the grasp; Lovers' Talk is clouds, Table Talk is smoke."Les Miserables”

“there is a point, moreover, at which the unfortunate and the infamous are associated and confounded in a single word, Les Miserables; whose fault is it? And then, is it not when the fall is lowest that charity ought to be greatest?”

“Les Miserables is first of all the product of a varied experience of the world, containing the perceptions of an entire life. And this image of reality is also a realistic image. The symbol, as Hugo uses it, does not idealize things; rather, it expresses their spiritual meaning without disguising them.”