Following are quotations and potential sermon illustrations from Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. They are arranged in alphabetical order by topic. Page numbers are from Charles Wilbour’s translation, A.L. Bert Publishers. With this most recent update (7-14-13) selections cover the entire range of the book. My hope is that these will be of use to pastors and others who are looking for “apples of gold in settings of silver” (Proverbs 25:11).

ANIMALS
“Animals are nothing but the forms of our virtues and vices, wandering before our eyes, the visible phantoms of our souls. God shows them to us to make us reflect.” (p. 165)

ATHEISTIC PHILOSOPHY
“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.” (p. 510)

BEAUTY
On how one of the 4 plots of land in the back yard was set aside for flowers, instead of more vegetables:
“The beautiful is as useful as the useful.” He added, after a moment’s silence, “perhaps more so.” (p. 23)

CARING
“Every day at every moment he heard them through the wall, walking, going, coming, talking and he did not lend his ear! And in these words there were groans, and he did not even listen, his thoughts were elsewhere upon dreams, upon impossible glimmerings, upon loves in the sky, upon infatuations; all the while human beings, his brothers in Jesus Christ, his brothers in the people, were suffering death agonies beside him!” (Volume II, p. 16)

CONTENTMENT/CHARITY
The description of how Bishop Myriel exchanged the Bishopric palace for the hospital: “There is evidently a mistake here. There are 26 of you in 5 or 6 small rooms; there are only 3 of us, and space for 60. There is a mistake, I tell you. You have my house and I have yours. Restore mine to me; you are at home.” (p. 5)

CONTENTMENT
“What more was needed by this old man who divided the leisure hours of his life, where he had so little leisure, between gardening in the daytime and contemplation at night? Was not this narrow inclosure, with the sky for a background, enough to enable him to adore God in His most beautiful as well as in His most sublime works? Indeed, is not that all, and what more can be desired? A little garden to walk and immensity to reflect upon. At his feet something to cultivate and gather; above his head something to study and reflect upon; a few flowers on earth and all the stars in the sky.” (p. 54)

COURAGE
When questioned about leaving the door to his home unlocked at all times, the Bishop responded:
“There is a bravery for the priest as well as a bravery for the colonel of dragoons.” “Only,” added he, “ours should be quiet.” (p. 24)

CREATION/PURPOSE
“Who then can calculate the path of the molecule? How do we know that the creations of the worlds are not determined by the fall of grains of sand? Who then understands the reciprocal flux and reflux of the infinitely great and the infinitely small, the echoing of causes in the abysses of being, and the avalanches of creation? A flesh-worm is of account; the small is great, the great is small; all is in equilibrium in necessity; fearful vision for the mind. There are marvelous relations between beings and things; in this inexhaustible whole, from sun to grub, there is not scorn; all need each other.” (p. 766-767)

CRITICISM
Of Tholomyes, Fantine’s lover: “He doubted everything with an air of superiority — a great power in the eyes of the weak.” (p. 120)

DECISION
“Did a voice whisper in his ear that he had just passed through the decisive hour of his destiny; that there was no longer a middle course for him; that if, thereafter, he should not be the best of men, he would be the worst; that he must now, so to speak, mount higher than the bishop or fall lower than the galley slave; that if he would become good he must become an angel; that if he would remain wicked he must become a monster.”
(p. 109)

DIET/MODERATION
“Indigestion is charged by God with enforcing morality on the stomach.” (p. 132)

EQUALITY
“Equality … is, civilly, all aptitudes have equal opportunity; politically, all votes having equal weight; religiously, all consciences having equal rights

FEAR
“Have no fear of robbers or murderers. Such dangers are without, and are petty. We should fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices the real murderers. The great dangers are within us. What matters it what threatens our heads or our purses? Let us think only of what threatens our souls.” (M. Myriel, Bishop of Digne, p. 27)

GIVING
Of M. Geborand — who had accumulated an estate of 2,000,000 francs in the manufacture of coarse cloths and serges, who had never given alms, but from the time of a sermon gave a penny every Sunday to the old beggar woman at the door of the cathedral: “See M. Geborand buying a penny worth of paradise.” (p. 11)

GOD
“He did not study God; he was dazzled by the thought.” (p. 54)

GOD (perspective)
After describing the tumult of the Battle of Waterloo for almost 50 pages in Les Miserables, Victor Hugo chronicles the international ramifications of the battle, for kings, countries and peoples. He then writes: “Such is Waterloo.
But What is that to the Infinite? All this tempest, all this cloud, this war, then this peace, all this darkness, disturb not for a moment the light of that infinite Eye, before which the least of the insects leaping from one blade of grass to another equals the eagle flying from spire to spire among the towers of Notre Dame.” (p. 346)

HISTORY/IRONY/CREDIT
“If ever the sic vos non vobis were applicable, it is surely to this village of Waterloo. Waterloo did nothing and was two miles distant of the action. Mont St. Jean was cannonaded, Hougomont was burned, Papelotte was burned, Planchenoit was burned, La Haie Sainte was taken by assault, La Belle-Alliance witnessed the meeting of the two conquerors; these names are scarcely known, and Waterloo, which had nothing to do with the battle, has all the honor of it.” (p. 347)

*INFLUENCE/COMPROMISE
At the end of the chapter, “Petit Gervais”, (p. 109-110) it describes Valjean comparing the vision of the bishop he saw, the good, the light, contrasted with the sin and darkness of his life. One must extinguish the other. The purity and goodness of the bishop won out, and overcame the evil that was in Valjean. His life was different from that day.
I think unfortunately that we often let the opposite happen: we let the darkness of the fear and wicked deeds of evil men shake us from the light of our positions, instead of influencing them for good instead. If we take the story of Les Miserables for example, we “priests” have recoiled in fear, and locked our doors, and hidden our silver, and rejected the request to house the criminal. We have let the darkness overcome our light, instead of the opposite.
(+x our salt has lost its savor, being overcome with the dirt of the world …)

INSTITUTIONS — ANTIQUATED
“The persistence of superannuated institutions in striving to perpetuate themselves is like the obstinancy of a rancid odor clinging to the hair; the pretension of spoiled fish that insists on being eaten; the tenacious folly of a child’s garment trying to clothe a man, or the tenderness of a corpse returning to embrace the living…. To this there is but one reply: “in the past.” (p. 506)

JESUS — PENAL SUBSTITUTION
“Behold, a man … who has done nothing, it may be, an innocent man, whose only misfortune is called by your name, upon whom your name weighs like a crime, who will be taken instead of you; will be condemned, will end his days in abjection and horror! Very well. Be an honored man yourself. Remain Monsieur l’Mayor, remain honorable and honored, enrich the city, feed the poor, bring up the orphans, live happy, virtuous and admired, and all this time while you are here in joy and in the light there shall be a man wearing your red blouse, bearing your name in ignominy, and dragging your chain in the galleys!” (p. 230)

JUSTICE
“It is easy to be kind; the difficulty is to be just.” (Javert, p. 206)

LES MISERABLES TITLE:
“There is a point, moreover, at which the unfortunate and the infamous are associated and confounded in a single word, a fatal word, Les Miserables” (Vol. II, p. 16)

LOVE
“To love or to have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life. To love is a consummation.” (p. 1191)

MARRIAGE
“The best way to worship God is to love your wife.” (p. 1190)

MERCY
“Is it not when the fall is lowest that charity ought to be greatest?” (Vol. II pg. 16)

MORALITY
“Morality is truth in full bloom.” (p. 512)

MOTHERHOOD
“Mothers arms are made of tenderness and sweet sleep blesses the child who lies therein.”

MUSIC
“Where there is no more hope, song remains.” (p. 860)

OBEDIENCE
“The first step is nothing; it is the last which is difficult.” (p. 1196)

OLD AGE
(Of M. Gillenormand) “His white hairs added a sweet majesty to the cheerful light upon his face. When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age.” (p 1153)

PRAYER
“In our view, the whole question is in the amount of thought that is mingled with prayer.” (p. 514)

PROVIDENCE/LUCK
(Jean Valjean fleeing with the unconscious Marius in the labyrinthine underground sewers of Paris) “He went forward, with anxiety, but with calmness, seeing nothing, knowing nothing, plunged into chance, that is to say, swallowed up in Providence.” (p. 1105)

PRAYER/LOVE
“One can no more pray too much than love too much.” (p. 55)

ROMANCE
“The memory of an absent being grows bright in the darkness of the heart; the more it has disappeared the more radiant it is; the despairing and gloomy soul sees that light in its horizon; star of the interior night.” (p. 745)

SOUL
“Happy, even in anguish, is he to whom God has given a soul worthy of love and of grief!” (p. 746)

STRIKE THE SHEPHERD …
“With (the disappearance of) Monsieur Madeleine, the prosperity of Montreil sur Mer disappeared … after his downfall, there was, at M__ sur M___, that egotistic distribution of what is left when great men have fallen — that fatal carving up of prosperous enterprises which is daily going on out of sight of human society, and which history has noted but once, and then because it took place after Alexander. Generals crown themselves kings; the foremen, in this case, assumed the position of manufacturers. Jealous rivalries arose. The spacious workshops of M. Madeleine were closed; the buildings fell into ruin, the workmen dispersed. Some left the country, others abandoned the business. From that time forth everything was done on a small instead of a large scale, and for gain rather than for good. No longer any center; competition on all sides and on all sides venom. M. Madeleine had ruled and directed everything. He fallen, every man strove for himself; the spirit of strife succeeded to the spirit of the organization, bitterness to cordiality, hatred of each against each instead of the good-will of the founder toward all; the threads knitted by M. Madeleine became entangled and broken; the workmanship was debased, the manufacturers were degraded, confidence was killed; customers diminished, there were fewer orders; wages decreased, the shops became idle, bankruptcy followed. And then there was nothing left for the poor. All that was there disappeared.” (p. 354-355)

SURRENDER/OBEDIENCE/CONSCIENCE
“Alas! In this unrelenting pugilism between our selfishness and our duty, when we thus recoil step by step before our immutable ideal, bewildered, enraged, exasperated at yielding, disputing the ground, hoping for possible flight, seeking some outlet, how abrupt and ominous is the resistance of the wall behind us!
To feel the sacred shadow which bars the way!
The inexorable invisible, what an obsession!
We are never done with conscience. Choose your course by it, Brutus; choose your course by it, Cato. It is bottomless, being God. We cast into this pit the labour of our whole life, we cast in our fortune, we cast in our riches, we cast in our success, we cast in our liberty or our country, we cast in our well-being, we cast in our repose, we cast in our happiness. More! More! More! Empty the vase! Turn out the urn! We must at last cast in our heart.” (p. 1195-1196)

TRIALS
“The pupil dilates in the night, and at last finds day in it, even as the soul dilates in misfortune, and at last finds God in it.” (p. 1104)

TRUTH
“Let us attack, but let us distinguish. The characteristic of truth is never to run into excess. What need has she of exaggeration? … Let us not, then, carry flame where light alone will suffice.” (p. 507)

TRUTH
“To be quiet is nothing? To keep silence is simple? No, it is not simple. There is a silence which lies.” (p. 1204)

WORK/HABITS
“Nothing is more dangerous than discontinued labor; it is habit lost. A habit easy to abandon, difficult to resume.” (p. 744)

WORSHIP
Of how Bishop Myriel only had an old altar in his oratory (room), when others would have contributed for a new one: “The most beautiful of altars,” said he, “is the soul of an unhappy man who is comforted and thanks God.” (p. 20)