A man's eye reveals his quality. It shows how much of a man there is within us. We declare ourselves by the light that gleams under our eyebrows. Petty spirits merely wink; great spirits emit a flash of lightning.

Pretty, but badly dressed, breath of an oracle which had passed by her and vanished after depositing in her heart one of the two germs which must afterwards fill the whole life of the woman, coquetry. Love is the other.

Marius set out at his accustomed hour for the Luxembourg. He met Courfeyrac on the way and pretended not to see him. Courfeyrac said later to his friends: 'I've just seen Marius's new hat and suit with Marius inside them. I suppose he was going to sit for an examination. He looked thoroughly silly.

One speaks to one's self, talks to one's self, exclaims to one's self without breaking the external silence; there is a great tumult; everything about us talks except the mouth. The realities of the soul are none the less realities because they are not visible and palpable.

God must not be judged from appearances. Beneath the gilding of heaven I perceive a poverty-stricken universe. Creation is bankrupt.

The lancer put on the satisfied smirk of a bandit praised for his honesty.

In fact, were it given to our human eye to see into the consciences of others, we would judge a man much more surely from what he dreams than from what he thinks.

Théodule was, we think we have mentioned, the favourite of Aunt Gillenormand, who preferred him because she did not see him. Not seeing people permits us to imagine in them every perfection.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

I read in a book once that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but I've never been able to believe it. I don't believe a rose WOULD be as nice if it was called a thistle or a skunk cabbage.

I don't think that women need to smell interesting.

An artist will betray himself by some sort of sincerity.