Alexandre Dumas

So rapid is the flight of dreams upon the wings of imagination.

Man does not steal, he conquers

Utterly sure of himself, convinced of his power, certain that the laws that governed other men couldn't touch him, he made straight for any goal he set himself, however rarified and dazzling, even if it were folly for anyone else to even consider it.

Oh, Mercédès, I have spoken your name with sighs of melancholy, with groans of pain and with the croak of despair. I have spoken it frozen with cold, huddled on the straw of my dungeon. I have spoken it raging with heat and rolling around on the stone floor of my prison. Mercédès, I must have my revenge, because for fourteen years I suffered, fourteen years I wept and cursed. Now, I say to you, Mercédès, I must have my revenge!

Can we account for instinct?' said Monte Cristo. 'Are there not some places where we seem to breathe sadness? _ why, we cannot tell. It is a chain of recollections _ an idea which carries you back to other times, to other places _ which, very likely, have no connection with the present time and place.

There are cancers so insidious in their nature that their very pulsation is invisible. Such cancers leave the ivory whiteness of the skin untouched, and marble not the firm, fair flesh, with their blue tints; the physician who bends over the patient's chest hears not, through he listens, the insatiable teeth of the disease grinding its onward progress through the muscles, as the blood flows freely on; the knife has never been able to destroy, and rarely even, temporarily, to discern the rage of these mortal scourges; their home is in the mind, which they corrupt; they fill the whole heart until it breaks. Such, madame, are the cancers, fatal to queens; are you, too, free from their scourge?

Valentine reposes within the walls of Paris, and to leave Paris is like losing her a second time.""Maximilian," said the count, "the friends that we have lost do not repose in the bosom of the earth, but are buried deep in our hearts, and it has been thus ordained that we may always be accompanied by them.

There are some situations which men understand by instinct, by which reason is powerless to explain; in such cases the greatest poet is he who gives utterance to the most natural and vehement outburst of sorrow. Those who hear the bitter cry are as much impressed as if they listened to an entire poem, and when th sufferer is sincere they are right in regarding his outburst as sublime.

Darling, has not the count just told us that all human wisdom is summed up in two words? Wait and hope.

I don__ think man was meant to attain happiness so easily. Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it.

There are words which close a conversation as with an iron door.

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 life. Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget, that until the day when God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words, - __ait and hope._ _ Your friend, Edmond Dantes, Count of Monte Cristo. The eyes of both were fixed on the spot indicated by the sailor, and on the blue-line separating the sky from the Mediterranean Sea, they perceived a large white sail.

My friend, let us enjoy the present and give no thought to the evils of the future.

God, who might have directed the assassin's dagger so as to end your career in a moment, has given you this quarter of an hour for repentance. Reflect, then, wretched man, and repent.

Unfortunates, who ought to begin with God, do not have any hope in him till they have exhausted all other means of deliverance.

Let me struggle like a woman- my strength lies in my weakness. - Milady

Look, look,' cried the count, seizing the young man's hands - "look, for on my soul it is curious. Here is a man who had resigned himself to his fate, who was going to the scaffold to die - like a coward, it is true, but he was about to die without resistance. Do you know what gave him strength? - do you know what consoled him? It was, that another partook of his punishment - that another partook of his anguish - that another was to die before him. Lead two sheep to the butcher's, two oxen to the slaughterhouse, and make one of them understand that his companion will not die; the sheep will bleat for pleasure, the ox will bellow with joy. But man - man, who God created in his own image - man, upon whom God has laid his first, his sole commandment, to love his neighbour - man, to whom God has given a voice to express his thoughts - what is his first cry when he hears his fellowman is saved? A blasphemy. Honour to man, this masterpiece of nature, this king of the creation!

No, monsieur,_ returned Monte Cristo __pon the simple condition that they should respect myself and my friends. Perhaps what I am about to say may seem strange to you, who are socialists, and vaunt humanity and your duty to your neighbor, but I never seek to protect a society which does not protect me, and which I will even say, generally occupies itself about me only to injure me; and thus by giving them a low place in my esteem, and preserving a neutrality towards them, it is society and my neighbor who are indebted to me.