There are some situations which men understand by instinct, by which reason is powerless to explain; in such cases the greatest poet is he who gives utterance to the most natural and vehement outburst of...

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

And now,’ said the unknown, ‘farewell kindness, humanity, and gratitude! Farewell to all the feelings that expand the heart! I have been heaven’s substitute to recompense the good – now the god of vengeance yields...

True love always makes a man better, no matter what woman inspires it.

Be happy, noble heart, be blessed for all the good thou hast done and wilt do hereafter, and let my gratitude remain in obscurity like your good deeds.

Love is the most selfish of all the passions.

Yet man will never be perfect until he learns to create and destroy; he does know how to destroy, and that is half the battle.

Look, look,’ cried the count, seizing the young man’s hands – “look, for on my soul it is curious. Here is a man who had resigned himself to his fate, who was going to the...

Oh, yes, yes, I bless you in my own name, and in the name of three generations of irreproachable men, who say through me, “The edifice which misfortune has destroyed, Providence may build up again.”...

Everyone knows that God protects drunkards and lovers.

I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the color-line I move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded halls. From out the caves of...

Unfortunates, who ought to begin with God, do not have any hope in him till they have exhausted all other means of deliverance.

The novelist Dumas would one day borrow features from both of his uncles, not to mention his grandfather, the acknowledged scoundrel, in fashioning the central villains of The Count of Monte Cristo. Reading court documents...

The king! I thought he was philosopher enough to allow that there was no murder in politics. In politics, my dear fellow, you know, as well as I do, there are no men, but ideas...

I’m going to heaven! I replied.-What do you mean, you’re going to heaven?-Let me pass.-And what will you do in heaven, my poor child?-I’m going there to kill God, who killed Daddy.

But these first needs of the heart are so imperious, these outpourings of amorous melancholy in young people are at once so sweet and so bitter, that they have often all the real marks of...

We must never expect discretion in first love: it is accompanied by such excessive joy that unless the joy is allowed to overflow, it will choke you.