I am currently reading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo and I love it. I wish I had been recording my favorite excerpts from the very beginning but I guess better late than never (I write this 583 pages into the book). The book begins with this preface:

"So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilisation, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates destiny that is divine, with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the age -- the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of woman by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night -- are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless."

This statement adequately sums up the portion of the book that I have read thus far. Hugo writes impassioned for the wretched that are a product of his society. He cries out for justice. He pleads for opportunity and understanding for the unfortunate and the wrongly oppressed. I love his heart for justice and his empathy for the pain of others. He hurts for every innocent child trapped in slavery, never knowing a mother's love (which seems a God-given right). He pities every man and woman driven to miserable actions and conflict with the government in the name of survival. I have not read many authors that have written with the conviction and emotion that Victor Hugo writes this book with.

Moving from this thought a bit, I would like to share another excerpt that I enjoyed. The context: the author is painting a picture of convents and monasteries in his day. In the midst of this, he lights upon the infinite (God).

"There is, we are aware, a philosophy that denies the infinite. There is also a philosophy, classed pathologically, which denies the sun; this philosophy is called blindness.
To set up a sense we lack as a source of truth, is a fine piece of blind man's assurance.
And the rarity of it consists in the haughty air of superiority and compassion which is assumed towards the philosophy that sees God, by this philosophy that has to grope its way. It makes one think of a mole exclaiming: 'How they excite my pity with their prate about a sun!'" (p. 438)

And one more last thought, he continues just a couple of pages down:

"A man is not idle, because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labour and there is an invisible labour.
To meditate is to labour; to think is to act.
Folded arms work, closed hands perform, a gaze fixed on heaven is a toil.
Thales remained motionless for four years. He founded philosophy.
In our eyes, cenobites are not idlers, nor is the recluse a sluggard.
To think of the Gloom is a serious thing." (pp. 440-441)

I realize this post has been a jumble of excerpts that I found interesting and they do not seem strongly related to one another. That first excerpt truly is the heart of the book. The other two are from sections where Hugo sets aside the main story for the sake of offering insight into what is going on in the background of his characters' tales. I think the appeal I find in such excerpts is that they echo thoughts that I myself have been ruminating on lately. Perhaps I will try to post only one excerpt next time and further expound upon how it relates to what I've been thinking.