Victor Hugo

It is nothing to die; it is horrible not to live.

The soul does not give itself up to despair until it has exhausted all illusions.

The forests through which we have passed with our child, the trees under which we have walked, the convents in which we have hidden, the games, the free laughter of childhood, all is in shadow. I imagined that all that belonged to me. There was my folly. Those Thenardiers were wicked. We must forgive them. Cosette, the time has come to tell of your mother. Her name was Fantine. Remember that name: Fantine. Fall on your knees whenever you pronounce it. She suffered much. And loved you much. Her measure of unhappiness was as full as yours of happiness. Such are the distributions of God. He is on high, he sees us all, and he knows what he does in the midst of his great stars. So I am going away, my children. Love each other dearly always. There is scarcely anything else in the world but that: to love one another.

Marius had lived too little as yet to know that nothing is more imminent than the impossible, and that what we must always forsee is the unforseen.

The pupil dilates in the night, and at last finds day in it, even as the soul dilates in misfortune, and at last finds God in it.

Philosophy is the microscope of thought.

Death is a good arrangement. God knows better than we do what we need. That you are happy, that Monsieur Pontmercy has Cosette, that youth espouses morning, that there are about you, my children, lilacs and nightingales, that your life is a beautiful lawn in the sunshine, that all the enchantments of heaven fill your souls, and now, that I who am good for nothing, that I die; surely all this is well. Look you, be reasonable, there is nothing else possible now, I am sure that it is all over.

There are people who observe the rules of honour as we observe the stars, from afar off.

He sleeps. Although his fate was very strange,

He lived. He died when he had no longer his angel.

The thing came to pass simply,

Of itself, as the night comes when day is gone.

In short, I am doing what I can, I suffer with the same universal suffering, and I try to assuage it, I possess only the puny forces of a man, and I cry to all: "Help me!"

When we are at the end of life, to die means to go away; when we are at the beginning, to go away means to die.

Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the grander view?