Quotes About Transformation

You see this hell from which you have just emerged is the first form of heaven. It was necessary to begin there.

The whole of progress tends in the direction of solution. Some day we shall be amazed. As the human race mounts upward, the deep layers emerge naturally from the zone of distress. The obliteration of misery will be accomplished by a simple elevation of level.

Jean Valjean had undertaken to teach her to read. Sometimes, as he made the child spell, he remembered that it was with the idea of doing evil that he had learned to read in prison. This idea had ended in teaching a child to read. Then the ex-convict smiled with the pensive smile of the angels. He felt in it a premeditation from on high, the will of some one who was not man, and he became absorbed in revery. Good thoughts have their abysses as well as evil ones.

Jean Valjean had entered the galleys sobbing and shuddering; he emerged impassive. He had entered in despair; he emerged gloomy.

Suddenly she let fly with this: It's nice here! It was a ghastly dump, but she felt free.

Better than the tread of mighty armies is an idea whose time has come.

The Grave and The Rose The Grave said to the Rose, What of the dews of dawn, Love's flower, what end is theirs? And what of spirits flown, The souls whereon doth close The tomb's mouth unawares? The Rose said to the Grave. The Rose said, In the shade From the dawn's tears is made A perfume faint and strange, Amber and honey sweet. And all the spirits fleet Do suffer a sky-change, More strangely than the dew, To God's own angels new, The Grave said to the Rose

This very slight change had worked a revolution.

Jean Valjean disconcerted him. All the axioms which had served him as points of support all his life long, had crumbled away in the presence of this man. Jean Valjean's generosity towards him, Javert, crushed him.

Point of departure: matter; point of arrival: the soul.

Revolution cannot really be conquered... If you wish to understand what Revolution is, call it Progress; and if you wish to understand what Progress is, call it Tomorrow. Tomorrow performs its work irresistibly, and it does it from today.

He set out for Toulon. He arrived there, after a journey of twenty-seven days, on a cart, with a chain on his neck. At Toulon he was clothed in the red cassock. All that had constituted his life, even to his name, was effaced; he was no longer even Jean Valjean; he was number 24,601.

In spring, sad souls grow light, as light falls into cellars at midday.

To subdue matter is the first step; to realize the ideal is the second.

Something new was entering his soul. Jean Valjean had never loved anything... But, as he was fifty-five and Cosette was only eight, all the love he might have felt through his whole life melted into a sort of ineffable glow. This was the second white vision he had met. The bishop had caused the dawn of virtue on his horizon; Cosette had invoked the dawn of love.

the galleys make the convict what he is; reflect upon that, if you please.

With the exercise of a little care, the nettle could be made useful; it is neglected and it becomes hurtful. It is exterminated. How many men resemble the nettle! He added, after a pause: Remember this, my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators.

The galleys make the convict what he is; reflect upon that, if you please. Before going to the galleys, I was a poor peasant, with very little intelligence, a sort of idiot; the galleys wrought a change in me. I was stupid; I became vicious: I was a block of wood; I became a firebrand. Later on, indulgence and kindness saved me, as severity had ruined me

If you wish to gain an idea of what revolution is, call it Progress; and if you wish to acquire an idea of the nature of progress, call it To-morrow. To-morrow fulfils its work irresistibly, and it is already fulfilling it to-day. It

Let that vile sand which you trample under foot be cast into the furnace, let it melt and seethe there, it will become a splendid crystal, and it is thanks to it that Galileo and Newton will discover stars.

To destroy abuses is not sufficient; customs must be modified. The mill is there no longer; the wind is still there.

How pretty it is here! It was an awful hovel, but she felt free.

The real human division is this: the luminous and the shady. To diminish the number of the shady, to augment the number of the luminous,—that is the object. That is why we cry: Education! science! To teach reading, means to light the fire; every syllable spelled out sparkles.

On emerging from that black and deformed thing which is called the galleys, the Bishop had hurt his soul, as too vivid a light would have hurt his eyes on emerging from the dark. The future life, the possible life which offered itself to him henceforth, all pure and radiant, filled him with tremors and anxiety. He no longer knew where he really was. Like