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It is not easy to keep silent when silence is a lie.

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A man may beg, but a woman has to sell.

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Well, listen a moment, Monsieur Mayor; I have often been severe in my life towards others. It was just. I did right. Now if I were not severe towards ...more

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I have an old hat which is not worth three francs, I have a coat which lacks buttons in front, my shirt is all ragged, my elbows are torn, my boots le...more

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There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.

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She had spears of straw and grass in her hair, not like Ophelia gone mad through contact with Hamlet's madness, but because she had slept in some stab...more

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We do not claim that the portrait we are making is the whole truth, only that it is a resemblance.

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At certain moments, the foot slips ; at others, the ground gives way. How many times had that conscience, furious for the right, grasped and overwhelm...more

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So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the civilizati...more

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There are, as we know, powerful and illustrious atheists. At bottom, led back to the truth by their very force, they are not absolutely sure that they...more

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Right is just and true.

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In all Thénardier's outpourings, the words and gestures, the fury blazing in his eyes, this explosion of an evil nature brazenly exposed, the mixture ...more

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The poor young man must work for his bread; he eats; when he has eaten, he has nothing left but reverie. He enters God's theater free; he sees the sky...more