The Count of Monte Cristo (AmazonClassics Edition)

by Alexandre Dumas

Believe me, to seek a quarrel with a man is a bad method of pleasing the woman who loves that man.

In politics, my dear fellow, you know, as well as I do, there are no men, but ideas—no feelings, but interests; in politics we do not kill a man, we only remove an obstacle, that is all.

a man of his disposition never kills himself, for he constantly hopes.

He guessed something uncommon was passing among the living; but he had so long ceased to have any intercourse with the world, that he looked upon himself as dead.

the overflow of my brain would probably, in a state of freedom, have evaporated in a thousand follies; misfortune is needed to bring to light the treasures of the human intellect. Compression is needed to explode gunpowder.

But there is no need to know danger in order to fear it; indeed, it may be observed, that it is usually unknown perils that inspire the greatest terror.

For all evils there are two remedies—time and silence.

Monte Cristo pressed his forehead on his burning hands, as if his brain could no longer bear alone the weight of its thoughts.

death is either a friend who rocks us gently as a nurse, or an enemy who violently drags the soul from the body.

There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of living.

all human wisdom is summed up in these two words,—‘Wait and hope.’—Your