Athos liked every one to exercise his own free-will. He never gave his advice before it was demanded and even then it must be demanded twice. "In general, people only ask for advice," he said "that they may not follow it or if they should follow it that they may have somebody to blame for having given it".

Every individual, from the highest to the lowest degree, has his place in the ladder of social life, and around him swirls a little world of interests, composed of stormy passions and conflicting atoms

...but my friends call me Edmund Dantes.

How is it that little children are so intelligent and men so stupid? It must be education that does it.

We are never quits with those who oblige us," was Dantes' reply; "for when we do not owe them money, we owe them gratitude.

There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness.

It is only the dead who do not return.