Why, in truth, sir,” was Monte Cristo’s reply, “man is but an ugly caterpillar for him who studies him through a solar microscope; but you said, I think, that I had nothing else to do. Now, really, let me ask, sir, have you? – do you believe you have anything to do? or to speak in plain terms, do you really think that what you do deserves being called anything?
Pain, anguish and suffering in human life are always in proportion to the strength with which a man is endowed.
He was a fine, tall, slim young fellow, with black eyes, and hair as dark as the raven’s wing; and his whole appearance bespoke that calmness and resolution peculiar to men accustomed from their cradle to contend with danger.
I was delighted to see you again, and forgot for the moment that all happiness is fleeting.
Misfortune is needed to plumb certain mysterious depths in the understanding of men; pressure is needed to explode the charge. My captivity concentrated all my faculties on a single point. They had previously been dispersed, now they clashed in a narrow space; and, as you know, the clash of clouds produces electricity, electricity produces lightning and lightning gives light.
Youth is a flower of which love is the fruit; happy is he who, after facing watched its silent growth, is permitted to gather and call it his own.
Besides, the storm which rages in her breast was increasing in its violence, and she would have burst her prison walls if her body could have enjoyed, for a single instant, the same proportions as her soul.
Is the world filled with tigers and crocodiles?” “Yes; and remember that two-legged tigers and crocodiles are more dangerous than the others.” “Never.
Instruction is good for a child; but example is worth more.
Joyful friends, mostly loyal, they hadn’t abandoned their protector before the gathering storm; and despite the threatening sky, despite the shuddering earth, they remained, smiling, considerate, and as devoted to misfortune as they had been to prosperity.
I never swear, Monseigneur. I say Yes or No, and as I am a gentleman, I keep my word.
Man upon this earth must expect everything, and ought to face everything.
I have heard it said that the dead have never done, in six thousand years, as much evil as the living do in a single day.
Happiness even makes the wicked good.
There is something so awe-inspiring in great afflictions that even in the worst times the first emotion of a crowd has generally been to sympathise with the sufferer in a great catastrophe.
The heart of the best woman is pitiless toward the sorrows of a rival.
But excessive grief is like a storm at sea, where the frail bark is tossed from the depths to the top of the wave.
But, it is well known, what strikes the capricious mind of the poet is not always what affects the mass of readers.
There are men who have suffered and who have not only gone on living, but even built a new fortune on the ruins of their former happiness. From the depths into which their enemies have plunged them, they have risen again with such vigor and glory that they have dominated their former conquerors and cast them down in their turn.
To despise flowers is to offend God.