Les Misérables

by Victor Hugo

M. Myriel had to undergo the fate of every newcomer in a little town, where there are many mouths which talk, and very few heads which think.

And being convinced himself, he was persuasive.

He was not as hostile to insects as a gardener could have wished to see him.

He was fond of saying, “There is a bravery of the priest as well as the bravery of a colonel of dragoons,— only,” he added, “ours must be tranquil.”

“But the brigands, Monseigneur?” “Hold,” said the Bishop, “I must think of that. You are right. I may meet them. They, too, need to be told of the good God.”

“Let us never fear robbers nor murderers. Those are dangers from without, petty dangers. Let us fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices are the real murderers. The great dangers lie within ourselves. What matters it what threatens our head or our purse! Let us think only of that which threatens our soul.”

Let us confine ourselves to prayer, when we think that a danger is approaching us. Let us pray, not for ourselves, but that our brother may not fall into sin on our account.”

One day a dowager of the impertinent variety who thinks herself spiritual, addressed this sally to him,

Outside of five or six immense exceptions, which compose the splendor of a century, contemporary admiration is nothing but short-sightedness.

The common herd is an old Narcissus who adores himself,

With the constellations of space they confound the stars of the abyss which are made in the soft mire of the puddle by the feet of ducks.

He declared to himself that there was no equilibrium between the harm which he had caused and the harm which was being done to him; he finally arrived at the conclusion that his punishment was not, in truth, unjust, but that it most assuredly was iniquitous.

You have the air of a pretty face upon which some one has sat down by mistake.

There is no one for spying on people’s actions like those who are not concerned in them.

An observation here becomes necessary, in view of the pages which the reader is about to peruse, and of others which will be met with further on. The author of this book, who regrets the necessity of mentioning himself, has been absent from Paris for many years. Paris has been transformed since he quitted it. A new city has arisen, which is, after a fashion, unknown to him. There is no need for him to say that he loves Paris: Paris is his mind’s natal city. In consequence of demolitions and reconstructions, the Paris of his youth, that Paris which he bore away religiously in his memory, is now a Paris of days gone by. He must be permitted to speak of that Paris as though it still existed. It is possible that when the author conducts his readers to a spot and says, “In such a street there stands such and such a house,” neither street nor house will any longer exist in that locality. Readers may verify the facts if they care to take the trouble. For his own part, he is unacquainted with the new Paris, and he writes with the old Paris before his eyes in an illusion which is precious to him. It is a delight to him to dream that there still lingers behind him something of that which he beheld when he was in his own country, and that all has not vanished. So long as you go and come in your native land, you imagine that those streets are a matter of indifference to you; that those windows, those roofs, and those doors are nothing to you; that those walls are strangers to you; tha...

It is certain that virtue adjoins pride on one side. A bridge built by the devil exists there. Jean Valjean had been, unconsciously, perhaps, tolerably near that side and that bridge, when Providence cast his lot in the convent of the Petit-Picpus; so long as he had compared himself only to the Bishop, he had regarded himself as unworthy and had remained humble; but for some time past he had been comparing himself to men in general, and pride was beginning to spring up. Who knows? He might have ended by returning very gradually to hatred.

When grace is mingled with wrinkles, it is adorable.