“The most beautiful of altars, he said, is the soul of an unhappy creature consoled and thankfing God.”

“Dost thou understand? I love thee!" he cried again. "What love!" said the unhappy girl with a shudder. He resumed,--"The love of a damned soul. a”

“He said to himself that he really had not suffered enough to deserve such radiant happiness, and he thanked God, in the depths of his soul, for having permitted that he, a miserable man, should be so loved by this innocent being."Jean Valjean about Cossette”

“The poor man shuddered, overflowed with an angelic joy; he declared in his transport that this would last through life; he said to himself that he really had not suffered enough to deserve such radiant happiness, and he thanked God, in the depths of his soul, for having permitted that he, a miserable man, should be so loved by this innocent being.”

“God is behind everything, but everything hides God. Things are black, creatures are opaque. To love a being is to render that being transparent.”

“He said to himself, that this child had a right to know life before renouncing it, that to deprive her in advance, and in some sort without consulting her, of all joys, under the pretext of saving her from all trials, to take advantage of her ignorance of her isolation, in order to make an artificial vocation germinate in her, was to rob a human creature of its nature and to lie to God.”

“God will reward you,' he said. 'You must be an angel since you care for flowers.”