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The Count Of Monte Cristo Quotes

Browse 13 quotes about The Count Of Monte Cristo.

The Count Of Monte Cristo Quotes

“Do you know what you have done, wise as you are? I have waited a month, which means I have suffered a month. I hoped-man is such a poor and miserable creature-I hoped, for what? I don't know: something unimaginable, absurd, senseless, a miracle...but what? God alone knows, for it was He who diluted our reason with that madness called hope.”

“I think that I have known you for a year; that, on the day we met, I wagered all my chances of happiness on your love; that the day came when you told me that you loved me; and that from that day forward I have staked all my future on having you. That has been my life. Now, I no longer think anything. All I can tell myself is that fate has turned against me, that I expected to win heaven and I have lost it. It happens every day that a gambler loses not only what he has, but also what he does not have.”

“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!”

“Enough,' said Mercedes, 'enough Edmond! Believe me that she who alone recognized you has been the only one to comprehend you. And had she crossed your path, and you had crushed her like a frail glass, still, Edmond, still she must have admired you! Like the gulf between me and the past, there is an abyss between you, Edmond, and the rest of mankind; and I tell you freely, that the comparison I drew between you and other men will be one of my greatest tortures. No! there is nothing in the world to resemble you in worth and goodness!”

“There are other things to fear, Monsieur,' Villefort said, 'apart from death, old age and madness. For example, apoplexy, that lightning bolt which strikes you down without destroying you, yet after which all is finished. You are still yourself, but you are no longer yourself: from a near-angel like Ariel you have become a dull mass which, like Caliban, is close to the beasts. As I said, in human language, this is quite simply called an apoplexy or stroke.”

“...a man who may not, like you, have seen all the kingdoms on earth, but who helped to overthrow one of the most powerful; a man who did not, like you, claim to be one of the envoys of God, but of the Supreme Being, not of Providence but of Fate. Well, Monsieur, the rupture of a blood vessel in the brain put an end to all that, not in a day, not in an hour, but in a second.”