There is neither happiness nor misfortune in this world, there is merely the comparison between one state and another, nothing more.
I have come from a planet called sorrow.
What, have I been on the wrong road for the past ten years? What, can it be that in a single hour the architect can become convinced that the work into which he has put all his hopes was, if not impossible, then sacriligeous?
The night was shining with stars. They were at the top of the Montee de Villedjuif, on the plateau from which Paris is a dark sea shimmering with millions of lights like phosphorescent waves; and waves they are, more thunderous, more passionate, more shifting, more furious and more greedy than those of the stormy ocean, waves which never experience the tranquility of a vast sea, but constantly pound together, ever foaming and engulfing everything!
It needs misfortune to be able to dig up in those secret mines, which are hidden in man’s soul.
So, summoning up all the power of her will, she tried to shut her eyes, but this operation of the most fearful of our senses, an operation that is normally so simple, at that moment became almost impossible to carry out, so strongly did eager curiosity struggle to push back her eyelids and discover the truth.
When they opened the door, it was to reveal a wan sky in which the moon struggled in vain to hold its own against a sea of clouds which poured dark waves across it, waves which it lit for a moment before they raced on, still darker than before, to lose themselves in the depths of infinity.
The unfortunates cling to the smallest hopes, as the happy do to the greatest good;.
If you want to find a culprit, first you find those who might gain a benefit from committed act.
I have heard it said that hearts inflamed by obstacles to their desire grew cold in time of security.
I have only two enemies: I shall not say two conquerors, because with persistence I can make them bow to my will: they are distance and time. The third and most awful is my condition as a mortal man.
In the first twenty years of life, your guide is hope, and in your last twenty years, reality.
Someday, when the world is much older, and when mankind will be masters of all the destructive powers in nature, to serve for the general good of humanity; when mankind, as you were just saying, have discovered the secrets of death, then that death will become as sweet and voluptuous as a slumber in the arms of your beloved.
However good-hearted one is, you understand, one eventually stops seeing people who depress you, so in the end Old Dantes was all alone.
Treville understood admirably the war method of that period, in which he who could not live at the expense of the enemy must live at the expense of his compatriots.
The demon which had whispered this idea to him would not leave him, buzzing in his ear with that persistence which rapidly ensures that some doubts, by the sole force of reasoning, become certainties.
D’Artagnan guardava meravigliato quell’uomo che metteva il potere illimitato che era nelle sue mani, potere che il re gli aveva affidato, al servizio dei suoi amori.
The name of father is sacred in two senses; he should be reverenced as the author of our being and as a master whom we ought to obey.
A father’s sufferings may affect great changes in the mind of a son.
My resolve is unwavering. But seek, Monsieur, and you will find: alas, every rich man has more than enough of poverty to pass by on his road through life!