The Count of Monte Cristo Quotes: Wait and Hope, and Other Lines Worth Keeping

Alexandre Dumas published The Count of Monte Cristo in instalments between 1844 and 1846, and it's still one of the great revenge stories. Edmond Dantès is a young sailor about to be married when he's betrayed by people he trusts and locked away in the Château d'If for fourteen years. He gets out, becomes rich beyond reason, and sets about repaying everyone who wronged him.

It's a long book, well over a thousand pages, and the lines worth keeping are scattered all through it. These are a few of the best, in the classic English translation.

For: waiting out a long, hard stretch

The Quotes

'...all human wisdom is summed up in these two words,—‘Wait and hope.’'

The last words of the novel, from the letter Dantès leaves for Maximilien Morrel and Valentine. After everything he has done and lost, this is what he has to pass on.

'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.'

From the same letter. Dantès knows what he's talking about here, having gone from his own betrothal feast to a prison cell in a single afternoon.

'Moral wounds have this peculiarity,—they may be hidden, but they never close; always painful, always ready to bleed when touched, they remain fresh and open in the heart.'

One of the truest lines in the book, about the kind of hurt that people carry around for years without anyone noticing.

'...remember that what has once been done may be done again.'

Dantès in the Château d'If, refusing to believe that escape is impossible. It's a good line for anyone facing something they've never done before.

'I am not proud, but I am happy, and happiness blinds, I think, more than pride.'

The young Dantès on the day of his betrothal feast, hours before everything falls apart. Read with hindsight, it's heartbreaking.

And the One From the Film

If you've seen the 2002 film with Jim Caviezel, you'll know this one too. It's spoken by Edmond Dantès in the film, and it has become one of the most shared lines connected to the story.

'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.'

The Book

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Don't let the length put you off. It was written to be read in instalments, so every chapter ends with a reason to start the next one.

The Reflection

For a revenge story, the book ends somewhere unexpected. Dantès gets everything he planned for, and it doesn't feel the way he thought it would. What he leaves behind is a two-word instruction for living through the parts of life you can't control.

Wait and hope sounds passive until you've had to do it. Anyone who has sat by a hospital bed, or waited for a test result, or waited for a grief to ease, knows it takes everything you've got.

The Question to Sit With

What am I waiting through right now, and where can I find a little hope inside it?

A Gentle Pause

For the days when the waiting feels too heavy, I recorded a meditation for when everything feels like too much.

Listen: When Everything Feels Too Much

Words for the Wall

Shop this print: Life Is a Storm

Two Monte Cristo prints are in the shop, on the Alexandre Dumas page. There's Remember That What Has Once Been Done, which makes a steadying gift before an exam or a new job, and the much-loved Life Is a Storm.

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