Some books take more time to read than others, but when it is over, some books are more worth it. One of these books is Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. Before the movie there is a fantastic musical, and before that there is a book. This piece of literary art is so full of lessons, and quotes that my paperback is now highlighted, and written through. The introduction summarized it quite well, “Along his difficult road, he encounters the compassion of a priest, the hardships of a prostitute, the love of an orphan, the determination of a policeman, the greed of a miscreant, and the rivalry of an idealist. In the end, he finds peace by giving and receiving love, practicing and accepting forgiveness, and accepting responsibility while relinquishing control.”
Other such wondrous quotes say it all:
“There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher. . .”
“…there will be more joy in heaven over the tears of a repentant sinner than over the white robes of a hundred good men.”
“Children at once accept joy and happiness with quick familiarity, being themselves naturally all happiness and joy.”
“…the unfortunate and the infamous are associated and confounded in a single word, a fatal word, les miserables; whose fault is it? And then, it is not when the fall is lowest that charity ought to be greatest?”
“Equality, citizens, is not all vegetation on a level,, a society of big spears of grass and little oaks; a neighborhood of jealousies emasculating each other; it is, civility, all aptitudes having equal opportunity; politically, all votes having equal weight; religiously, all consciences having equal right.”
“…this barricade is made of neither paving stones, nor of timbers, nor of iron; it is made of two mounds, a mound of ideas and a mound of sorrows.”
“Progress is the mode of man. The general life of the human race is called Progress; the collective advance of the human race is called Progress. Progress marches; it makes the great human and terrestrial journey toward the celestial and the divine. . .”
“Love is the only ecstasy, everything else weeps.
To love or to have loved, that is enough.”
And in final summary:
“The book which the reader has now before his eyes is, from one end to the other, in its whole and in its details, whatever may be the intermissions, the exceptions, or the defaults, the march from evil to good, from injustice to justice, from false to the true, from night to day, from appetite to conscience, from rottenness to life, from brutality to duty, from Hell to Heaven, from nothingness to God.”
It is so wonderful when a book speaks to you that you have to highlight almost every passage!
I had to only choose some of the quotes that I had underlined in the book! It is so good!
I had to study parts of this novel years ago and it is one in which lessons from it have stuck with me many years later. It is a powerful novel!
This is the second time that I have read it. It took a long time, because other books would come to my attention, and I would set it aside. I was so glad that when I finished it, I watched both movies (the musical, and non-musical version).
I only ever saw the movie but I love every quote especially the one about heaven and rhe repentence
Which movie did you watch? There is an older one that better follows the book, but then there is the one based on the Broadway musical. I like them both, but I love the music. I was first introduced to the songs of Les Mis when I was in high school, and so a few friends, and I went to see the musical when it came to Seattle. I was lucky enough to see it again this last year with one of the same friends!
Loved this. It’s definitely going on my TBR now.
My to read pile is so huge!