Quotes from The Three Musketeers

Quotations follow the Richard Pevear translation (Penguin Classics, 2006) — our recommended edition.

1. 2

   All for one, one for all—that is our motto, is it not?

2. 3

   Never fear quarrels, but seek adventures.

3. 4

   There are services so great that they can only be paid by ingratitude.

4. 5

   Everyone knows that drunkards and lovers have a protecting deity.

5. 6

   Friend, be a man! Women weep for the dead; men avenge them!

6. 7

   People, in general, only ask advice not to follow it; or if they do follow it, it is for the sake of having someone to blame for having given it.

7. 8

   Time, dear friend, time brings round opportunity; opportunity is the martingale of man. The more we have ventured the more we gain, when we know how to wait.

8. 9

   Life is a chaplet of little miseries which the philosopher counts with a smile.

9. 10

   Nothing makes time pass or shortens the way like a thought that absorbs in itself all the thinker's faculties.

10. 11

    I have not the uniform, but I have the spirit. My heart is that of a Musketeer; I feel it, monsieur, and that impels me on.

11. 12

    Weep, heart full of love, youth, and life! Alas, would I could weep like you!

12. 13

    It is by my order and for the good of the state that the bearer of this has done what he has done.