Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes.

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

So much the worse for those who fear wine, for it is because they have some bad thoughts which they are afraid the liquor will extract from their hearts.

God is merciful to all, as he has been to you; he is first a father, then a judge.

...does that not tell you that grief is like life and that there is always somethings unknown beyond it?

Why, in truth, sir," was Monte Cristo's reply, "man is but an ugly caterpillar for him who studies him through a solar microscope; but you said, I think, that I had nothing else to do. Now, really, let me ask, sir, have you? — do you believe you have anything to do? or to speak in plain terms, do you really think that what you do deserves being called anything?

He's right: They have to put madmen with madmen.