Those who are coerced by force become our enemies, those who succumb to reason become our allies.
Yet what is expectation but a kind of folly, and what is that folly but an excess of hope?
The most curious spectacle in life is that of death.
So far, then,” said Danglars, mentally, “all has gone as I would have it. I am, temporarily, commander of the Pharaon, with the certainty of being permanently so, if that fool of a Caderousse can be persuaded to hold his tongue. My only fear is the chance of Dantes being released. But, there, he is in the hands of Justice; and,” added he with a smile, “she will take her own.” So saying, he leaped into a boat, desiring to be rowed on board the Pharaon, where M. Morrel had agreed to meet him.
And then, after the first blush of the admiration which he could not help feeling, he began to be tortured by the pangs of envy, by that slow fever which creeps over the heart and changes it into a nest of vipers, each devouring the other and ever born anew.
In presence of this ingenuous greatness of soul, Aramis felt himself little. It was the second time he had been compelled to bend before real superiority of heart, much more powerful than splendour of mind.
Besides the pleasure, there is always remorse, from the indulgence of our passions; and, after all, what have you men to fear from all this; the world excuses, and notoriety ennobles you?
Never be afraid of opportunities, always be on the lookout for adventures.
What difference is there between the figure of the conqueror and that of the pirate?” said the ancients. The difference only between the eagle and the vulture, – serenity or restlessness.
This commissary was a man of very repulsive mien, with a pointed nose, with yellow and salient cheek bones, with eyes small but keen and penetrating, and an expression of countenance resembling at one the polecat and the fox. His head, supported by a long and flexible neck, issued from his large black robe, balancing itself with a motion very much like that of the tortoise thrusting his head out of his shell.
There is a sort of consolation at the contemplation of the yawning abyss, at the bottom of which lie darkness and obscurity. Edmond.
Vengeance in bloom shone in her eyes and smiled on her lips.
If a man has tortured and killed your father, your mother, your sweetheart, in short, one of those beings who leave an eternal emptiness and a perpetually bleeding wound when they are torn from your heart, do you think society has given you sufficient reparation because the blade of the guillotine has passed between the murderer’s trapezius and his occipital bone, because the who made you undergo long years of mental and emotional suffering has undergone a few seconds of physical pain?
But he isn’t dead?’ ‘No, he isn’t, as you can very well see. Instead of striking him between the sixth and seventh left rib, as your compatriots usually do, you must have struck higher or lower; and these lawyers, you know, are not easy to kill off.
Besides, we feel always a sort of mental superiority over those whose lives we know better than they suppose.
This being understood, let us proceed with our history.
Really, monsieur, I should regard you as a coward, and a traitor too, if I did not, with greater justice, regard you as a madman.
As to the new pope, scarcely had he completed the formalities of etiquette which his exaltation imposed upon him, and paid to each man the price of his simony, when from the height of the Vatican he cast his eyes upon Europe, a vast political game of chess, which he cherished the hope of directing at the will of his own genius.
If one’s lot is cast among fools it is necessary to study folly.
I can assure you of one thing, – the more men you see die, the easier it becomes to die yourself; and in my opinion, death may be a torture, but it is not an expiation.