Social problems go beyond borders. The sores of the human race, these running sores that cover the glove, don't stop at red or blue lines drawn on the map. Wherever men are ignorant and desperate, wherever women sell themselves for bread, wherever children suffer for want of instruction or a warm hearth, Les Misérables knocks on the door and says: Open up, I have come for you.

A ceux qui ignorent, enseignez leur le plus de chose que vous pourrez ; la société est coupable de ne pas donner l'instruction gratis ; elle répond de la nuit qu'elle produit. Cette âme est pleine d'ombre, le péché s'y commet. Le coupable n'est pas celui qui fait le péché, mais celui qui fait l'ombre.

Teach the ignorant as much as you can. Society is to blame for not giving free education: it is responsible for the darkness it creates. the soul in darkness sins, but the real sinner is he who caused the darkness

Humanity is our common lot. All men are made of the same clay. There is no difference, at least here on Earth, in the fate assigned to us. We come of the same void, inhabit the same flesh, are dissolved in the same ashes. But ignorance infecting the human substance turns it black, and that incurable blackness, gaining possession of the soul, becomes Evil.

She loved with so much passion as she loved with ignorance. She did not know whether it were good or evil, beneficent or dangerous, necessary or accidental, eternal or transitory, permitted or prohibited: she loved.

Freedom begins where it ends ignorance.