The Count of Monte Cristo

Back Forward Menu

"Two years!" exclaimed Dantes; "do you really believe I can acquire all
these things in so short a time?"

"Not their application, certainly, but their principles you may; to
learn is not to know; there are the learners and the learned. Memory
makes the one, philosophy the other."

"But cannot one learn philosophy?"

"Philosophy cannot be taught; it is the application of the sciences to
truth; it is like the golden cloud in which the Messiah went up into
heaven."

"Well, then," said Dantes, "What shall you teach me first? I am in a
hurry to begin. I want to learn."

"Everything," said the abbe. And that very evening the prisoners