It was like the eve of a battle; the hearts beat, the eyes laughed, and they felft that the life they were perhaps going to lose, was after all, a good thing.

Haste is a poor counselor

The hungry men were seen, followed by their valets, roaming the quais and guards' quarters; gleaning from their outside friends all the dinners they could find; for, according to Aramis, in prosperity one should sow meals right and left, in order to harvest some in adversity.

Nothing makes time pass or shortens the way like a thought that absorbs in itself all the faculties of the one who is thinking. External existence is then like a sleep of which this thought is the dream. Under its influence, time has no more measure, space has no more distance.

(...) the tree forsakes not the flower: the flower falls from the tree.

Perhaps what I am about to say will appear strange to you gentlemen, socialists, progressives, humanitarians as you are, but I never worry about my neighbor, I never try to protect society which does not protect me -- indeed, I might add, which generally takes no heed of me except to do me harm -- and, since I hold them low in my esteem and remain neutral towards them, I believe that society and my neighbor are in my debt.

Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it.