Les Misérables quotation , Famous Les Misérables Quotes

Les Misérables Quotes and Quotation


Table of contents
1 ()
2 PREFACE
3 Volume One: FANTINE
4 Volume Two: COSETTE
5 Volume Three: MARIUS
6 Volume Four: ST. DENIS
7 Volume Five: JEAN VALJEAN

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Les Misérables is a book with five volumes. The volumes are, in order: Fantine, Cosette, Marius, St. Denis, and Jean Valjean. I did not bother to list the volume under each source. Most copies of Les Misérables should have these "Volumes" and "Books" listed, but probably not the "Chapters". Thus, the first quote is in Volume I (Fantine), Book I (An Upright Man), Chapter I (M. Myriel).
Most of these notes (the ones that are indicated as such) are taken from the "Modern Library" hardcover publication of Les Misérables, translated by Charles E. Wilbour. It is 1222 pages long. If you have a different publication, (unabridged, of course), with a different number of pages, you should be able to do some simple math (cross multiplying) to get the general (if not exact) page that these quotes are found on, as I have had to do several times.

PREFACE

Volume One: FANTINE

  • "Be it true or false, what is said about men often has as much influence upon their lives, and especially upon their destinies, as what they do."
    • Source: Book I: "An Upright Man", Chapter I: "M. Myriel"

  • "Sire, [...] you behold a good man, and I a great man. Each of us may profit by it."
    • Source: Book I: "An Upright Man", Chapter I: "M. Myriel" [Page 4 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "... where there are many tongues to talk, and but few heads to think."
    • Source: Book I: "An Upright Man", Chapter I "M. Myriel" [Page 4 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • Talking about the Bishop's town.

  • "See Monsieur Geborand, buying a pennyworth of paradise."
    • Source: Book I: "An Upright Man", Chapter IV: "Works Answer Words" [Page 12 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • After the bishop preached about giving alms to the poor to escape hell and enter paradise, a rich man who had never given alms before started giving a penny every Sunday to an old beggar woman. When the Bishop noticed this, he replied with this quote.

  • "How frightened hypocrisy hastens to defend itself..."
    • Source: Book I: "An Upright Man", Chapter IV: "Works Answer Words" [Page 13 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "But who ever does attain to his ideal?"
    • Source: Book I: "An Upright Man", Chapter VI: "How He Protected His House" [Page 19 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "I am not in the world to care for my life, but for souls."
    • Source: Book I: "An Upright Man", Chapter VII: "Cravatte" [Page 24 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • The Bishop

  • "The general [...] pursued the emperor as if he wished to let him [the emperor] escape."
    • Source: Book I: "An Upright Man", Chapter XI: "A Qualification" [Page 41 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "Table talk and lovers' talk equally elude the grasp; lovers' talk is clouds, table talk is smoke."
    • Source: Book III: "The Year 1817", Chapter VI: "A Chapter of Self-Admiration" [Page 111 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "A discussion is good, [...] a quarrel is better."
    • Source: Book III: "The Year 1817", Chapter VII: "The Wisdom of Tholomyes" [Page 117 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "They belonged to that bastard class formed of low people who has risen, and intelligent people who have fallen, which lies between the classes called middle and lower, and which unites some of the faults of the latter with nearly all the vices of the former, without possessing the generous impulses of the workman, or the respectability of the bourgeois."
    • Source: Book IV: "To Entrust is Sometimes to Abandon", Chapter II: "First Sketch of Two Equivocal Faces" [Page 129 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • This is what is said about the Thenardiers.

  • "She drowned what little brain she had in them."
    • Source: Book IV: "To Entrust is Sometimes to Abandon", Chapter II: "First Sketch of Two Equivocal Faces" [Page 130 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • Said about Madame Thenardier and her reading habits.

  • "To be wicked does not insure prosperity--for the inn did not succeed well."
    • Source: Book IV: "To Entrust is Sometimes to Abandon", Chapter III: "The Lark" [Page 130 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • About the Thenardier's Inn

  • "A good mayor is a good thing. Are you afraid of the good you can do?"
    • Source: Book V: "The Descent", Chapter II: "Madeleine" [Page 137 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • What people said to Jean Valjean, who was hiding under the name Father Madeleine

  • "For prying into any human affairs, none are equal to those whom it does not concern."
    • Source: Book V: "The Descent", Chapter VII: "Madame Victurnien Spends Thirty Francs on Morality" [Page 149 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "He who knows that, sees all the shadow. He is alone. His name is God."
    • Source: Book V: "The Descent", Chapter XI: "Christus Nos Liberavit" [Page 158 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • About Fantine's Troubles

  • "She would have softened a heart of granite; but you cannot soften a heart of wood."
    • Source: Book V: "The Descent", Chapter XIII: "Solution of Some Questions of Municipal Police" [Page 162 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • She is Fantine, the heart of wood is Javert.

  • "To write the poem of the human conscience, were it only of a single man, were it only of the most infamous of men, would be to swallow up all epics in a superior and final epic."
    • Source: Book VII: "The Champmathieu Affair", Chapter XIII: "A Tempest in a Brain" [Page 184 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "One can no more prevent the mind from returning to an idea than the sea from returning to a shore. In the case of the sailor, this is called a tide; in the case of the guilty, it is called remorse."
    • Source: Book VII: "The Champmathieu Affair", Chapter XIII: "A Tempest in a Brain" [Page 189 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "When he was tried, God was not there."
    • Source: Book VII: "The Champmathieu Affair", Chapter IX: "A Place for Arriving at Convictions" [Page 224 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • Jean Valjean (under the name and identity that he as built for himself as Monsieur the Mayor) is in the courtroom, looking at the "innocent who bears his face, who goes to judgment in my place," and he (Valjean) is thinking about when he was given five years for stealing "a mouthful of bread," which stretched out to nineteen years for subsequent escape attempts.

  • "You must be very sharp to tell me where I was born. I don't know myself. Everybody can't have houses to be born in; that would be too handy."
    • Source: Book VII: "The Champmathieu Affair", Chapter X: "The System of Denegations" [Page 230 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • Champmathieu (the man who is accused of being Jean Valjean and of stealing a branch off a tree, for which he will be sentenced to live in the galleys) talks to the court, who is telling Champmathieu more than he knows about himself, because they are telling him about Jean Valjean also, of whom Champmathieu has no idea of. This quote was after Champmathieu was told when he was born, to which he replied with this quote.

  • "Happily, God knows where to find her soul."
    • Source: Book VIII: "The Counter-Stroke", Chapter V: "A Fitting Tomb" [Page 253 in MLIB Hardcover.] This is the last paragraph of the last chapter of the last book of the last volume. Hence, the last paragraph of the volume FANTINE.
    • Fantine's grave: A public grave among other beggars and the like.

Note: End of Volume One Quotes

Volume Two: COSETTE

Notes: Cosette is Fantine's illegitimate child. Fantine's husband ran away, Fantine left Cosette with the Thenardiers, she goes to work in Paris, is wrongly fired from Valjean's factory (without Valjean's knowledge) became a beggar and a prostitute, and ends up dying without ever seeing Cosette after she left her with the Thenardiers.

  • "Sought for, he might be, but followed he was not."
    • Source: Book V: "A Dark Chase Needs a Silent Hound", Chapter II: "It is Fortunate that Vehicles Can Cross the Bridge of Austerlitz" [Page 381 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • Javert is hunting for Jean Valjean, the latter has Cosette with him.

  • "Jean Valjean had this peculairiry, that he might be said to carry two knapsacks; in one he had the thoughts of a saint, in the other the formidable talents of a convict. He helped himself from one or the other as occasion required."
    • Source: Book V: "A Dark Chase Needs a Silent Hound", Chapter V: "Which would be Impossible were the Streets Lighted with Gas." {Page 387 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "Truly at that instant, if Jean Valjean had had a kingdom, he would have given it for a rope."
    • Source: Book V: "A Dark Chase Needs a Silent Hound", Chapter V: "Which would be Impossible were the Streets Lighted with Gas." {Page 387-388 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • Valjean desperately needs a rope to escape Javert, the latter has the former caught in a dead-end trap. The only escape is up. It is not difficult for Valjean to scale walls, but he needs a rope to lift up Cosette.

  • "We do not comprehend everything, but we insult nothing."
    • Source: Book VI: "Petite Picpus", Chapter XI: "End of the Petit Picpus" [Page 429 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • This is about the Convent "Petit Picpus."

  • "It is necessary to understand them, were it only to avoid them."
    • Source: Book VI: "Petite Picpus", Chapter XI: "End of the Petit Picpus" [Page 430 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • Preceding sentence: "In the meantime, let us study the things which are no more."

  • "Impossible. [...] Father Fauchelevent, let it go that I fell from on high."
    • Source: Book VIII: "Cemeteries Take What is Given Them", Chapter I: "Which Treat of the Manner of Entering the Convent" [Page 447 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "Not being heard is no reason for silence."
    • Source: Book VIII: "Cemeteries Take What is Given Them", Chapter I: "Which Treat of the Manner of Entering the Convent" [Page 448 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • Father Fauchelevent is talking to Valjean, the latter who is, as the quote indicates, not paying attention.

  • "He who is escaping never coughs and never sneezes."
    • Source: Book VIII: "Cemeteries Take What is Given Them", Chapter IV: "In Which Jean Valjean has Quite the Appearance of Having Read Ausin Castillejo" [Page 463 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • Valjean is escaping from the convent in a coffin. Father 'F' asks what would happen if Valjean coughed or sneezed while he was being carried away, to which he replied with this quote.

  • "That recruit was at home, hunting up his "card", and rather unlikely he was to find it, as it was in Fauchelevent's pocket."
    • Source: Book VIII: "Cemeteries Take What is Given Them", Chapter VII: "In Which will be Found the Origin of the Saying: Don't Lose Your Card" [Page 474 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • Valjean is in the coffin, but the cometary has a new helper (Father F did not count on this in his escape plan for Valjean: the previous helper had died), who insists on burying the coffin (with Valjean in it) quickly and leaving. The new helper starts burying the coffin, and Father F must quickly improvise, or Valjean will die soon. Father F steals the helpers card, without which, after a certain time which is quickly approaching, the helper cannot leave the cometary. So the helper leaves, Father F and Valjean (still in the coffin) are left alone, and Valjean's life is saved.

  • "Laughter is sunshine; it chases winter from the human face."
    • Source: Book VIII: "Cemeteries Take What is Given Them", Chapter IX: "The Close" [Page 481 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • About Cosette (still young)

Note: End of Volume Two Quotes

Volume Three: MARIUS

Note: End of Volume Three Quotes

Volume Four: ST. DENIS

A copy of Jean Valjean's speech Sweat of the Damned in this volume is available here.

  • "Now logic ignores the Almost, just as the sun ignores the candle."
    • Source: Book I: "A Few Pages of History", Chapter II: "Badly Sewed" [Page 699 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "Happy, even in anguish, is he to whom God has given a soul worthy of love and of grief! He who has not seen the things of this world, and the hearts of men by this double light, has seen nothing, and know nothing of the truth."
    • Source: Book II: "Eponine", Chapter I: "The Field of the Lark" [Page 727 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "No. I am the devil, but that is all the same to me."
    • Source: Book II: "Eponine", Chapter III: "An Apparition to Father Mabeuf" [Page 734 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • Said by Eponine. Eponine has just appeared out of nowhere and watered F. Mabeuf's flowers. Mabeuf says to Eponine, "[...] you are an angel, since you care for flowers." Eponine replys with this quote.

  • "In '93, a coppersmith bought the house to pull it down, but not being able to pay the price for it, the nation sent him into bankruptcy. So that it was the house that pulled down the coppersmith."
    • Source: Book III: "The House in the Rue Plumet", Chapter I: "The Secret House" [Page 740 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "[...] 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."
    • Source: Book III: "The House in the Rue Plumet", Chapter IV: "Change of Grating" [Page 751 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • What Valjean thought to himself about Cosette

  • "Women play with their beauty as children do with their knives. They wound themselves with it."
    • Source: Book III: "The House in the Rue Plumet", Chapter VI: "The Battle Commences" [Page 755-56 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "Dante would have thought he saw the seven circles of Hell on their passage."
    • Source: Book III: "The House in the Rue Plumet", Chapter VII: "The Chain" [Page 766 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • Valjean and Cosette watch a procession of seven wagons roll by. The wagons have men who are condemned to the galleys sitting on them.

  • "One evening little Gavroche had had no dinner; he remembered that he had had no dinner also the day before; this was becoming tiresome. He resolved that he would try for some supper."
    • Source: Book IV: "Aid from Below May be Aid from Above", Chapter II: "Mother Plutarch is not Embarrassed on the Explanation of a Phenomenon" [Page 771 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "The most terrible of motives and the most unanswerable of responses: Because."
    • Source: Book VI: "Little Gavroche", Chapter I: "A Malevolent Trick of the Wind." [Page 793 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "[...] who had both hands in his pockets, but his wits evidently out of their sheath."
    • Source: Book VI: "Little Gavroche", Chapter I: "In Which Little Gavroche Takes Advantage of Napoleon the Great." [Page 796 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • A barber is watching Gavroche, and the barber thinks this.

  • "The bureau is closed. I receive no more complaints."
    • Source: Book VI: "Little Gavroche", Chapter I: "In Which Little Gavroche Takes Advantage of Napoleon the Great." [Page 797 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • Said by Gavroche when a passer complained when Gavroche splashed his [the passer's] polished boots with mud.

  • "At a certain depth of distress, the poor, in their stupor, groan no longer over evil, and are no longer thankful for good."
    • Source: Book VI: "Little Gavroche", Chapter I: "In Which Little Gavroche Takes Advantage of Napoleon the Great." [Page 798 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "Ah, what does this mean? It rains again! [..] if this continues, I withdraw my subscription."
    • Source: Book VI: "Little Gavroche", Chapter I: "In Which Little Gavroche Takes Advantage of Napoleon the Great." [Page 798 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • Gavroche has just given his coat to a girl when the storm starts to worsen. Gavroche replys.

  • "What can be done in a sepulcher, they agonised, and what can be done in a hell, they sang. For where there is no more hope, song remains."
    • Source: Book VII: "Argot", Chapter II: "Boots" [Page 837 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "The endeavor is vain, you cannot annihilate that eternal relic of the human heart, love."
    • Source: Book VII: "Argot", Chapter II: "Boots" [Page 837 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "Let us lament as over stomachs, over minds which do not eat. If there is anything more poignant than a body agonising for want of bread, it is a soul which is dying of hunger for light."
    • Source: Book VII: "Argot", Chapter IV "The Two Duties: To Watch and to Hope" [Page 842 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "There is but one way of refusing To-morrow, that is to die."
    • Source: Book VII: "Argot", Chapter IV: "The Two Duties: To Watch and to Hope" [Page 843 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "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."
    • Source: Book VIII: "Enchantments and Desolations", Chapter VI: "Marius Becomes so Real as to Give Cosette his Address" [Page 861 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "There are moments when a man has a furnace in his brain. Marius was in one of those moments."
    • Source: Book IX: "Where are They Going?", Chapter II: "Marius" [Page 878 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "The wind of revolutions is not tractable."
    • Source: Book X: "June 5rh, 1832", Chapter IV: "The Ebullitions of Former Times" [Page 898 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "His brothers in the evening, his father in the morning; such had been his night."
    • Source: Book XI: "The Atom Fraternises with the Hurricane", Chapter I: "Some Insight into the Origin of Gavroche's Poetry--Influence of an Academician upon that Poetry." [Page 902 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • About Gavroche. In the evening, he had, without knowing that they indeed were his brothers, had found food and shelter for two 'boys' (his brothers). Later the next day (early in the morning), he helped his father escape from jail. His father did not even recognize that his son had helped him.

  • "The road is free; the streets belong to everybody."
    • Source: Book XI: "The Atom Fraternises with the Hurricane", Chapter VI: "Recruits" [Page 911 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "Great perils have this beauty, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers."
    • Source: Book XII: "Corinth", Chapter IV: "Attempt at Consolation upon the Widow Hucheloup" [Page 927 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "The mouse has caught the cat."
    • Source: Book XII: "Corinth", Chapter VII: "The Man Recruited in the Rue Des Billettes" [Page 935 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • Said by Gavroche (mouse) to Javert (cat).

  • "His life had been darkness, his end was night."
    • Source: Book XII: "Corinth", Chapter VIII: "Several Interrogation Points Concerning One Le Cubac, Who Perhaps was Not Le Cabuc" [Page 939 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "Civil war? What does this mean? Is there any foreign war? Is not every war between men, war between brothers? War is modified only by its aim. There is neither foreign war, nor civil war; there is only unjust war and just war."
    • Source: Book XIII: "Marius Enters the Shadow", Chapter III: "The Extreme Limit" [Page 947 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • Hugo's thoughts on war, I suppose.

  • "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."
    • Source: Book XIII: "Marius Enters the Shadow", Chapter V: "End of Jean Prouvaire's Rhyme" [Page 958 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "Your friends have just shot you."
    • Source: Book XIII: "Marius Enters the Shadow", Chapter III: "The Extreme Limit" [Page 958 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • Said by Enjolras to Javert. Enjolras was hoping to trade Javert for one of his own men who had been captured (Prouvaire), but as he was planning to do so, he heard Prouvaire cry "Vive la France! Vive l'avenir!", then he heard a shot. Prouvaire was dead, and Javert's only chance for escape had been killed.

  • "At certain hours, everything seems impossible; at other hours, everything appears easy; Jean Valjean was in one of those happy hours."
    • Source: Book XV: "The Rue De L'Homme Armé", Chapter I: "Blotter, Blabber" [Page 967 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "The soul does not give itself up to despair until it has exhaused all illusions."
    • Source: Book XV: "The Rue De L'Homme Armé", Chapter I: "Blotter, Blabber" [Page 968 in MLIB Hardcover]

  • "We take the cart for the republic and we leave the Auvergnat to the monarchy."
    • Source: Book XV: "The Rue De L'Homme Armé", Chapter IV: "The Excess of Gavroche's Zeal" [Page 977 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • Gavroche. He steals a cart from a sleeping man and leaves a note: "French Republic. Received your cart. GAVROCHE."

  • "You talk genteelly. Really, nobody would guess your age. You ought to sell all your hairs at a hundred francs apiese. That would make you five hundred francs."
    • Source: Book XV: "The Rue De L'Homme Armé", Chapter IV: "The Excess of Gavroche's Zeal" [Page 978 in MLIB Hardcover]
    • Gavroche talking to a National Guard.

  • "To save yourself by means of that which has ruined you is the masterpiece of great men;"
    • Source: Book XV: "The Rue De L'Homme Armé", Chapter IV: "The Excess of Gavroche's Zeal" [Page 978 in MLIB Hardcover]

Note: End of Volume Four Quotes

Volume Five: JEAN VALJEAN


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