Homer is one of the men of genius who solve that fine problem of art - the finest of all, perhaps - truly to depict humanity by the enlargement of man: that is, to generate the real in the ideal.
At least you are mine! Soon – in a few months, perhaps, my angel will sleep in my arms, will awaken in my arms, will live there. All your thought at all moments, all your looks will be for me; all my thought, all my moments, all my looks will be for you!
He was at his own request and through his own complicity driven out of all his happinesses one after the other; and he had this sorrow, that after having lost Cosette wholly in one day, he was afterwards obliged to lose her again in detail.
Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart; I breathe at this hour the fragrance of the lilacs, the violets, and the roses, as at twenty years ago.
Thought is the work of the intellect, reverie is its self-indulgence. To substitute day-dreaming for thought is to confuse a poison with a source of nourishment.
Separated lovers cheat absence by a thousand fancies which have their own reality. They are prevented from seeing one another and they cannot write; nevertheless they find countless mysterious ways of corresponding, by sending each other the song of birds, the scent of flowers, the laughter of children.