Take care, my worthy host,” said Albert, “better is a sure enemy to well.
The subjects which he has chosen, however, are of both historic and dramatic importance, and they have the added value of giving the modern reader a clear picture of the state of semi-lawlessness which existed in Europe, during the middle ages.
Those who are born with a silver spoon,’ Emmanuel said, ’those who have never needed anything, do not understand what happiness is, any more than those who do not know the blessing of a clear sky and who have never entrusted their lives to four planks tossing on a raging sea.
You know as well as I do, my dear boy, that in politics there are no people, only ideas; no feelings, only interests. In politics, you don’t kill a man, you remove an obstacle, that’s all.
Alas, madame!” exclaimed Athos, “to-day love is like war – the breastplate is becoming useless.
In all well-organised brains, the predominating idea – and there always is one – is sure to be the last thought before sleeping, and the first upon waking in the morning. Andrea had scarcely opened his eyes when his predominating idea presented itself, and whispered in his ear that he had slept too long.
He called successively at the abodes of Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. Neither of them had returned.
Dear Valentine,’ said the young man, ’you are too far above my love for me to dare speak of it to you, yet every time that I see you I need to tell you that I adore you, so that the echo of my own words will gently caress my heart when I am no longer with you.
Danglars was one of those men born with a pen behind the ear, and an inkstand in place of a heart. Everything with him was multiplication or subtraction. The life of a man was to him of far less value than a numeral, especially when, by taking it away, he could increase the sum total of his own desires.
So it was that Dantes, during the Hundred Days and after Waterloo, remained under lock and key, forgotten, if not by men, at least by God.
For Milady was well aware that her most seductive power was in her voice, which could run skilfully through the whole scale of tones, from mortal speech, upwards to the language of heaven.
Tree forsakes not the flower – the flower falls from the tree.
Never did a man deeply in love allow the clocks to go on peacefully.
Death is either a friend who rocks us gently as a nurse, or an enemy who violently drags the soul from the body.
And this feeling had been more painfully perceived by young d’Artagnan – for so was the Don Quixote of this second Rosinante named – from his not being able to conceal from himself the ridiculous appearance that such a steed gave him, good horseman as he was. He had sighed deeply, therefore, when accepting the gift of the pony from M. d’Artagnan the elder. He was not ignorant that such a beast was worth at least twenty livres; and the words which had accompanied the present were above all price.
Danglars was one of those calculating men who are born with a pen behind their ear and an inkwell instead of a heart.
D’Artagnan is right,” said Athos. “Behold our three leaves of absence, which come from M. de Treville; and here are three hundred pistoles, which come from I know not where. Let us go and be killed where we are told to go. Is life worth so many questions? D’Artagnan, I am ready to follow you.
Be nice to people on your way up because you might meet ’em on your way down.
Incertitude is still hope.
If I am happy in an error, do not have the cruelty to lift me from it.