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If you're looking for the best stocks to buy for the dividends, it may be time to look outside the U.S.

Tobacco titan Altria (NYSE: MO) has long been a solid dividend-paying company. It remains one today -- and it's offering a fat dividend yield, recently 7.8%. It's generally smart to seek out dividends growing at a good clip,

SA Quant identifies high-quality, income-generating stocks that can help offset losses for volatile markets and provide investors with a passive income stream.

The same is true for stocks. Consider that global icon Apple Inc. (ticker: AAPL) yields a mere 0.4%, despite having roughly $100 billion in net income and one of the most entrenched brands in the planet. That's because it's easy to maintain a nominal dividend, but much harder to drive a huge yield – even for titans like Apple.

Johnson & Johnson is like the Fort Knox of dividend stocks. The healthcare company has an AAA bond rating. That's tied for the best in the world and is higher than the U.S. government. This rating signifies that the company has a strong capacity to meet its financial obligations even during the deepest economic downturns.