What would you not have accomplished if you had been free?" "Possibly nothing at all; the overflow of my brain would probably, in a state of freedom, have evaporated in a thousand follies; misfortune is needed to bring to light the treasures of the human intellect. Compression is needed to explode gunpowder. Captivity has brought my mental faculties to a focus; and you are well aware that from the collision of clouds electricity is produced — from electricity, lightning, from lightning, illumination.

The difference between treason and patriotism is only a matter of dates.

I have been taken by Satan into the highest mountain in the earth, and when there he said he to me, ‘Child of earth, what wouldst thou have to make thee adore me?’ I replied, ‘Listen, I wish to be Providence myself, for I feel that the most beautiful, noblest, most sublime thing in the world, is to recompense and punish.

Edmond Dantes: I don't believe in God. Abbe Faria: That doesn't matter, He believes in you.

I am strong against everything, except against the death of those I love. He who dies gains; he who sees others die loses.

...know you not that you are my sun by day, and my star by night? By my faith! I was in deepest darkness till you appeared and illuminated all.

On what slender threads do life and fortune hang.