The Count of Monte Cristo Quotes
The 4 most famous lines from Alexandre Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo (1844), each with its speaker and the scene it belongs to. These are the quotes readers underline, copy into essays and put on walls - gathered in one place, explained in a line.
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“On the 24th of February, 1815, the look-out at Notre-Dame de la Garde signaled the three-master, the Pharaon from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples.”
- The narrator. The novel's opening sentence.
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“Until the day when God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words,—'Wait and hope.'”
- The Count. The novel's closing line, in the letter to Maximilian.
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“There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more.”
- The Count. His hard-won arithmetic of fortune, from the same letter.
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“I am not proud, but I am happy; and happiness blinds, I suppose, more than pride.”
- Edmond Dantès. The young sailor, in the happy early chapters.
Why these lines survive
Alexandre Dumas’s sentences earn their fame by compression: each line carries the whole book’s argument in a form you can carry in your pocket. Read in order, the 4 quotes above also sketch the novel’s shape - the world it opens, the pressure it applies, the note it ends on. If you meet them before the book, nothing is spoiled beyond mood; if you meet them after, each one lands like a place you have been.
Quote collectors: pair this page with the The Count of Monte Cristo quiz to see which lines actually stuck, the book club questions when you want to argue about them, or how long the reread takes - about 26 hours and 16 minutes at an average pace. If the lines did their job and you want more of the same nerve, the books like The Count of Monte Cristo list is next.
Want the whole shelf’s lines? Our Alexandre Dumas books in order guide lists every book.
How to use a quotes page
Three honest uses. Before reading: skim the first two quotes to taste the prose - if the voice does not pull you, the book will not either. During: mark which quote you actually reach in the text, because the distance between famous line and lived scene is where a book keeps its secrets. After: pick the one quote you would defend at dinner and check it against the discussion questions - a quote you can argue about is a quote you understood. What a quotes page is not for is replacing the book; five lines of Alexandre Dumas are an invitation, not a summary.
More quote collections
The Odyssey quotes, Moby-Dick quotes, Don Quixote quotes, Alice in Wonderland quotes - or browse quotes from all 133 classics. Then see which of them stuck on the original book quiz.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most famous quote from The Count of Monte Cristo?
“On the 24th of February, 1815, the look-out at Notre-Dame de la Garde signaled the three-master, the Pharaon from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples.” - the line most readers meet first. The full list above gives the scene for every one of the 4.
How many The Count of Monte Cristo quotes are here?
4, chosen because they are the lines readers actually underline and repeat - each with who says it and where it lands in the book.
Are these quotes explained?
Yes - every quote carries its speaker and a one-line context, because a quote without its scene loses most of its charge.
Can I use these in an essay or post?
Short quoted lines with attribution are standard fair use in essays and posts. Quote accurately, name the author, and you are on solid ground.
Are these The Count of Monte Cristo quotes word-for-word accurate?
They are checked against the novel as written, not harvested from quote sites - which is why a few famous “lines” you may have seen elsewhere are missing here: many of those come from film adaptations or paraphrase the prose. What is listed above is the book.