There is no vacuum in the human heart. Certain demolitions take place, and it is well that they do, but on condition that they are followed by reconstructions.
In saying no to progress, it is not the future which they condemn, but themselves. They give themselves a melancholy disease; they inoculate themselves with the past. There is but one way of refusing tomorrow, that is to die.
Everything speaks: the flowing airstream and the sailing halycon, the blade of grass, the flower, the bud, the element; did you imagine the universe to be otherwise?
But secondly you say 'society must exact vengeance, and society must punish'. Wrong on both counts. Vengeance comes from the individual and punishment from God.
Marius and Cosette were in the dark in regard to each other. They did not speak, they did not bow, they were not acquainted; they saw each other; and, like the stars in the sky separated by millions of leagues, they lived by gazing upon each other.
If it were (Is it not) outrageous that society should treat with such rigid precision those of its members who were most poorly endowed in the distribution or wealth that chance had made, and who were, therefore, most worthy of indulgence.