Les Miserables (Les Misérables)

A moment later he was walking in the garden, surrendering mind and soul to a dreamy contemplation of these grand and mysterious works that God shows at night to eyes still open.

While the voices were singing, Jean Valjean was entirely absorbed in them. He no longer saw the night; he saw a blue sky. He seemed to feel the spreading of the wings we all have within us.

It would seem, as we have already noted, that he thought, following the example of all who have been wise, holy, and just, that his highest duty was not toward himself.

Needham’s eels prove that God is unnecessary. A drop of vinegar in a spoonful of dough supplied the fiat lux. Imagine the drop greater and the spoonful larger, and you have the world. Man is the eel. Then what is the use of an eternal Father?

To climb a wall, break a branch, and take apples—for a child that’s only a trespass; for a man it is a misdemeanor; for a convict it is a crime. Scaling a wall and theft includes everything. It is a case not for a police court but for the superior court. It is not a few days’ imprisonment, but life imprisonment.

“O Thou who art! Ecclesiastes names thee the Almighty; Maccabees names thee Creator; the Epistle to the Ephesians names thee Liberty; Baruch names thee Immensity; the Psalms name thee Wisdom and Truth; John names thee Light; the Book of Kings names thee Lord; Exodus calls thee Providence; Leviticus, Holiness; Esdras, Justice; Creation calls thee Go

The universe appeared to him a vast disease; he perceived fever everywhere, he auscultated suffering everywhere, and, without trying to solve the enigma, he endeavored to stanch the wound.

A saint addicted to abnegation is a dangerous neighbor; he is very likely to infect you with an incurable poverty, a stiffening of the articulations necessary to advancement, and, in fact, more renunciation than you would like; and men flee from this contagious virtue. Hence the isolation of Monseigneur Bienvenu.

When many different sensations have disturbed the day, when the mind is preoccupied, we can fall asleep once but not a second time. Sleep comes at first more readily than it returns. Such was the case for Jean Valjean. He could not get to sleep again, and so he began to think.