Alexandre Dumas-fils Quotes & Sayings

How one realizes the shortness of life by the rapidity of sensations! I have only known Marguerite for two days, she has only been my mistress since yesterday, and she has already so completely absorbed my thoughts, my heart, and my life. — Alexandre Dumas-fils

We are not allowed to have hearts, under penalty of being hooted down. — Alexandre Dumas-fils

Do not let us despise the woman who is neither mother, sister, maid, nor wife — Alexandre Dumas-fils

Here is Christianity with its marvellous parable of the Prodigal Son to teach us indulgence and pardon. Jesus was full of love for souls wounded by the passions of men; he loved to bind up their wounds and to find in those very wounds the balm which should heal them. Thus he said to the Magdalen: "Much shall be forgiven thee because thou hast loved much," a sublimity of pardon which can only have called forth a sublime faith.
Why do we make ourselves more strict than Christ? Why, holding obstinately to the opinions of the world, which hardens itself in order that it may be thought strong, do we reject, as it rejects, souls bleeding at wounds by which, like a sick man's bad blood, the evil of their past may be healed, if only a friendly hand is stretched out to lave them and set them in the convalescence of the heart? — Alexandre Dumas-fils

Her love will prove fatal to any man who dares to love her. — Alexandre Dumas-fils

Well, sir, embrace me once, as you would embrace your daughter, and I swear to you that that kiss, the only chaste kiss I have ever had, will make me strong against my love, and that within a week your son will be once more at your side, perhaps unhappy for a time, but cured forever. — Alexandre Dumas-fils

One has always had a childhood, whatever one becomes. — Alexandre Dumas-fils

Women sometimes allow you to be unfaithful to their love; they never allow you to wound their self-esteem. — Alexandre Dumas-fils

Memory is a paradise out of which fate cannot drive us. — Alexandre Dumas-fils

God almost always opens two ways which lead thither, the ways of sorrow and of love. — Alexandre Dumas-fils

The child is small, and he includes the man; the brain is narrow, and it harbours thought; the eye is but a point, and it covers leagues — Alexandre Dumas-fils

Be good, be young, be true! Evil is nothing but vanity, let us have the pride of good, and above all let us never despair. — Alexandre Dumas-fils

Her delight in the smallest things was like that of a child. There were days when she ran in the garden, like a child of ten, after a butterfly or a dragon-fly. This courtesan who had cost more money in bouquets than would have kept a whole family in comfort, would sometimes sit on the grass for an hour, examining the simple flower whose name she bore. — Alexandre Dumas-fils

Now that I expect nothing, now that I no longer entertain the slightest hopes, the end of this adventure becomes simply a matter of curiosity. — Alexandre Dumas-fils

Everything was believed except the truth. — Alexandre Dumas-fils

Love gives one a kind of goodness. — Alexandre Dumas-fils

Your father embraced me once more. I felt two grateful tears on my forehead, like the baptism of my past faults, and at the moment when I consented to give myself up to another man I glowed with pride at the thought of what I was redeeming by this new fault. — Alexandre Dumas-fils

Had she stabbed me with a knife, she could not have hurt me more. — Alexandre Dumas-fils

I think that every one whom you may ask how to write a play will reply, if he really can write one, that he doesn't know how it is done. It is a little as if you were to ask Romeo what he did to fall in love with Juliet and to make her love him; he would reply that he did not know, that it simply happened.
Well, my dear friend, if you want me to be quite frank, I'll own up that I don't know how to write a play. One day a long time ago, when I was scarcely out of school, I asked my father the same question. He answered: It's very simple; the first act clear, the last act short, and all the acts interesting. — Alexandre Dumas-fils

Love without esteem cannot go far or reach high. It is an angel with only one wing. — Alexandre Dumas-fils

The reason why women grown bad are worse than men is because it is the best that turns to the worst. — Alexandre Dumas-fils

No matter how long I live, I shall live longer than you will love me — Alexandre Dumas-fils

I gave myself to you sooner than I ever did to any man, I swear to you; and do you know why? Because when you saw me spitting blood you took my hand; because you wept; because you are the only human being who has ever pitied me. I am going to say a mad thing to you: I once had a little dog who looked at me with a sad look when I coughed; that is the only creature I ever loved. When he died I cried more than when my mother died. It is true that for twelve years of her life she used to beat me. Well, I loved you all at once, as much as my dog. If men knew what they can have for a tear, they would be better loved and we should be less ruinous to them. — Alexandre Dumas-fils

The difference between genius and stupidity is: genius has its limits. — Alexandre Dumas-fils

We must have done something very wicked before we were born, or else we must be going to be very happy indeed when we are dead, for God to let this life have all the tortures of expiation and all the sorrows of an ordeal. — Alexandre Dumas-fils

The chains of marriage are so heavy that it takes two to bear them, sometimes three. — Alexandre Dumas-fils