Misfortune does not help us to believe.

If you wish to discover the guilty person, first find out to whom the crime might be useful.

In politics, my dear fellow, you know, as well as I do, there are no men, but ideas — no feelings, but interests; in politics we do not kill a man, we only remove an obstacle, that is all.

How did I escape? With difficulty. How did I plan this moment? With pleasure!

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

that Englishman who came to challenge me three or four months ago, and whom I killed to stop him bothering me

...but my friends call me Edmund Dantes.