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

“And do you know Monsieur Marius? I believe I was a little in love with you.”

“Without knowing it, Javert in his awful happiness was deserving of pity, like every ignorant man who triumphs. Nothing could have been more poignant or more heartrending than that countenance on which was inscribed all the evil in what is good.”

“Ever since history has been written, ever since philosophy has meditated, misery has been the garment of the human race.”

“The girls chirped and chatted like uncaged warblers. They were delirious with joy... Intoxications of life’s morning! Enchanted years! The wing of a dragonfly trembles! Oh, reader, whoever you may be, do you have such memories? Have you walked in the underbrush, pushing aside branches for the charming head behind you? Have you slid laughing, down some slope wet with rain, with the woman you loved?”

“You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love, is to live by it.”

“To love, or to have loved,—this suffices. Demand nothing more. There is no other pearl to be found in the shadowy folds of life. To love is a fulfilment”