“To die for lack of love is horrible. The asphyxia of the soul.”

“So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine destiny; so long as the three great problems of the century—the degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of woman through hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light—are unsolved; so long as social asphyxia is possible in any part of the world;—in other words, and with a still wider significance, so long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Misérables cannot fail to be of use. HAUTEVILLE HOUSE, 1862. [Translation by Isabel F. Hapgood]”

“The soul that loves and suffers is in the sublime state.”

“People do not lack strength, they lack will.”

“As we have explained, in first love the soul is taken long before the body; later, the body is taken long before the soul; sometimes the soul is not taken at all.”

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

“Ye who suffer because ye love, love yet more. To die of love, is to live in it.”