Alexandre Dumas Quotes & Sayings

There is something so awe-inspiring in great afflictions that even in the worst times the first emotion of a crowd has generally been to sympathise with the sufferer in a great catastrophe. — Alexandre Dumas

I am not proud, but I am happy; and happiness blinds, I think, more than pride. — Alexandre Dumas

In excessive griefs, as in great tempests, the abyss is found between the tops of the loftiest waves — Alexandre Dumas

for the unfortunate man never alluded to his own sorrows. — Alexandre Dumas

A man is always in a hurry to be happy. — Alexandre Dumas

Truly generous men are always ready to become sympathetic when their enemy's misfortune surpasses the limits of their hatred. — Alexandre Dumas

I have always had more dread of a pen, a bottle of ink, and a sheet of paper than of a sword or pistol. — Alexandre Dumas

Alas, madame!" exclaimed Athos, "to-day love is like war
the breastplate is becoming useless. — Alexandre Dumas

No, I slept as I always do when I am bored and have not the courage to amuse myself, or when I am hungry and have not the desire to eat.
The Count of Monte Cristo — Alexandre Dumas

But the dreadful thing about wicked ideas is that bit by bit wicked minds can become accustomed to them. — Alexandre Dumas

Unfortunates, who ought to begin with God, do not have any hope in him till they have exhausted all other means of deliverance. — Alexandre Dumas

Come now, be a man!' he thought. 'We are used to adversity; let's not be crushed by a mere disappointment, or else I shall have suffered for nothing. The heart breaks when it has swelled too much in the warm breath of hope, then finds itself enclosed in cold reality. — Alexandre Dumas

Oh," said the count, "I only know two things which destroy the appetite, - grief - and as I am happy to see you very cheerful, it is not that - and love. Now after what you told me this morning of your heart, I may believe" - — Alexandre Dumas

Napoleon has still retained a train of parasitical satellites. — Alexandre Dumas

You instinctively display the greatest virtue, or rather the chief defect, of us eccentric Parisians- that is, you assume the vices you have not, and conceal the virtues you possess. — Alexandre Dumas

Yes; and remember that two-legged crocodiles are more dangerous that the others. — Alexandre Dumas

But the kings of modern times, restrained by the limits of mere probability, have neither courage nor desire. They fear the eat that hears their orders, and the eye that scrutinizes their actions. — Alexandre Dumas

Fortune is a courtesan; favorable yesterday, she may turn her back tomorrow. — Alexandre Dumas

Sometimes one has suffered enough to have the right to never say: I am too happy. — Alexandre Dumas

Mankind will not be perfect until it can create and destroy like God. It can already destroy: that's half the battle. — Alexandre Dumas

D'Artagnan, my friend, thou art brave, thou art prudent, thou hast excellent qualities, but- women will destroy thee!
-D'Artagnan — Alexandre Dumas

On the first Monday of the month of April, 1625, the market town of Meung, in which the author of ROMANCE OF THE ROSE was born, — Alexandre Dumas

Then Dantes rose more agile and light than the kid among the myrtles and shrubs of these wild rocks, took his gun in one hand, his pickaxe in the other, and hastened towards the rock on which the marks he had noted terminated. "And now," he exclaimed, remembering the tale of the Arabian fisherman, which Faria had related to him, "now, open sesame! — Alexandre Dumas

So much the worse for those who fear wine, for it is because they have some bad thoughts which they are afraid the liquor will extract from their hearts. — Alexandre Dumas

... I am no longer a reasoning creature; I have no will, unless it be the will never to decide. — Alexandre Dumas

For the happy man prayer is only a jumble of words, until the day when sorrow comes to explain to him the sublime language by means of which he speaks to God. — Alexandre Dumas

This commissary was a man of very repulsive mien, with a pointed nose, with yellow and salient cheek bones, with eyes small but keen and penetrating, and an expression of countenance resembling at one the polecat and the fox. His head, supported by a long and flexible neck, issued from his large black robe, balancing itself with a motion very much like that of the tortoise thrusting his head out of his shell. — Alexandre Dumas

Danglars was one of those calculating men who are born with a pen behind their ear and an inkwell instead of a heart. — Alexandre Dumas

I regret having helped you clarify your past and having told you what I did.'
'Why?'
'Because I've instilled in your heart a feeling that wasn't there before: vengeance. — Alexandre Dumas

Women of a certain grade are like prosperous grisettes in one respect, they seldom return home after twelve o'clock. — Alexandre Dumas

Although there still lingered in his mind a faint and unperfect recollection of the events of the preceding night; just as the brain retains on waking in the morning the dim and misty outline of a dream. — Alexandre Dumas

Armed to the teeth?" "He had not even a knitting-needle. — Alexandre Dumas

Around the table reigned that noisy hilarity which usually prevails at such a time among people sufficiently free from the demands of social position not to feel the trammels of etiquette. — Alexandre Dumas

Well, my dear father, in the shipwreck of life
for life is an eternal shipwreck of our hopes
I throw all my useless baggage in the sea, that's all, and remain with my will, prepared to live entirely alone and consequently entirely free. — Alexandre Dumas

No. I will remain because I have been accustomed for thirty years to go and take the orderly word of the King, and to have it said to me, 'Good evening, d'Artagnan,' with a smile I did not beg for! — Alexandre Dumas

I hate the English
they are coarse, like every nation that swills beer. — Alexandre Dumas

God is merciful to all, as he has been to you; he is first a father, then a judge. — Alexandre Dumas

When one loves, one is only too ready to believe one's love returned. — Alexandre Dumas

Up to then, the joy of fulfilling, perhaps over-fulfilling, their duty had kept them in a state of exultation. Such a state is close to enthusiasm and that makes one insensible to the things of this earth. But their enthusiasm died down, and they had had gradually to return from the land of dreams to the world of reality. — Alexandre Dumas

Return to the world still more brilliant because of your former sorrows. — Alexandre Dumas

What would you not have accomplished if you had been free?"
"Possibly nothing at all; the overflow of my brain would probably, in a state of freedom, have evaporated in a thousand follies; misfortune is needed to bring to light the treasures of the human intellect. Compression is needed to explode gunpowder. Captivity has brought my mental faculties to a focus; and you are well aware that from the collision of clouds electricity is produced - from electricity, lightning, from lightning, illumination. — Alexandre Dumas

There are two medicines for all ills: time and silence. — Alexandre Dumas

Starvation!" exclaimed the abbe, springing from his seat. "Why, the vilest animals are not suffered to die by such a death as that. The very dogs that wander houseless and homeless in the streets find some pitying hand to cast them a mouthful of bread; and that a man, a Christian, should be allowed to perish of hunger in the midst of other men who call themselves Christians, is too horrible for belief. Oh, it is impossible - utterly impossible! — Alexandre Dumas

He called successively at the abodes of Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. Neither of them had returned. — Alexandre Dumas

Let the rich man rediscover the poor one; the free man the pisoner; and the resurrected man the corpse. — Alexandre Dumas

However anxious one is to reach one's goal, one can excuse delays on the route when these are caused by ovations. — Alexandre Dumas

It was only then that he met Villefort's dull gaze, that look peculiar to men of the law who do not want anyone to read their thoughts, and so make their eyes into unpolished glass. The look reminded him that he was standing before Justice, a figure of grim aspect and manners. — Alexandre Dumas

We'll go where the air is pure, where all sounds are soothing, where, no matter how proud one may be, one feels humble and finds oneself small- in short, we'll go to the sea. I love the sea as one loves a mistress and I long for her when I haven't seen her for some time — Alexandre Dumas

There are misfortunes in life that no one will accept; people would rather believe in the supernatural and the impossible. — Alexandre Dumas

I am orderly out of spirit of idleness, to save myself the trouble of looking after things... — Alexandre Dumas

Those who are born with a silver spoon,' Emmanuel said, 'those who have never needed anything, do not understand what happiness is, any more than those who do not know the blessing of a clear sky and who have never entrusted their lives to four planks tossing on a raging sea. — Alexandre Dumas

Danglers alone was content and joyous, he had got rid of an enemy and preserved his situation on board the Pharaon; Danglers was one of those men born with a pen behind the ear, and an ink-stand in place of a heart. Everything with him was multiplication or subtraction, and he estimated the life of a man as less precious than a figure, when that figure could increase, and that life would diminish, the total of the amount. — Alexandre Dumas

what despair to see a woman one loves longing for those thousand nothings from which women compose their happiness, and to be unable to give her those thousand nothings. — Alexandre Dumas

Pain, thou art not an evil — Alexandre Dumas

Commend me to the cardinal,' said Milady. 'Commend me to Satan,' replied Rochefort. — Alexandre Dumas

Abbe Faria: Here is your final lesson - do not commit the crime for which you now serve the sentence. God said, Vengeance is mine.
Edmond Dantes: I don't believe in God.
Abbe Faria: It doesn't matter. He believes in you. — Alexandre Dumas

Mastery of language affords one remarkable opportunities. — Alexandre Dumas

Never did a man deeply in love allow the clocks to go on peacefully. — Alexandre Dumas

Sleeping on a plank has one advantage - it encourages early rising. — Alexandre Dumas

there are twenty-four hours in a day, sixty minutes in an hour and sixty seconds in a minute. A lot can be done in eighty-six thousand four hundred seconds. — Alexandre Dumas

A man is held to be criminal,sometimes, by the great ones of the earth,not because he has committed a crime himself but because he knows of one which has been committed. — Alexandre Dumas

And yet the two young people had never declared their affection; they had grown together like two trees whose roots are mingled, whose branches intertwine and whose intermingled perfume rises to the heavens. — Alexandre Dumas

One always hurries towards happiness, Monsieur Danglars, because when one has suffered much, one is at pains to believe in it. — Alexandre Dumas

replied d'Artagnan, — Alexandre Dumas

There are the learners and the learned. Memory makes the one, philosophy the other. — Alexandre Dumas

He perceived then, at a glance, that this woman was young and beautiful; and her style of beauty struck him more forcibly from its being totally different from that of the southern countries in which d'Artagnan had hitherto resided. She was pale and fair, with long curls falling in profusion over her shoulders, had large, blue, languishing eyes, rosy lips, and hands of alabaster. — Alexandre Dumas

I have no will, unless it be the will never to decide. I have been so overwhelmed by the many storms that have broken over my head, that I am become passive in the hands of the Almighty, like a sparrow in the talons of an eagle. I live, because it is not ordained for me to die. — Alexandre Dumas

It is our mission to forestall our duties — Alexandre Dumas

M. Danglars, who had listened to all this preamble with imperturbable coolness, but without understanding a word, engaged as he was, like every man burdened with thoughts of the past, in seeking the thread of his own ideas in those of the speaker. — Alexandre Dumas

And knitted his brow like a man disquieted. "The devil!" murmured he, between his teeth. "Can Treville have set this Gascon upon — Alexandre Dumas

Besides we are men, and after all it is our business to risk our lives. — Alexandre Dumas

Young man had a steed which was the observed of all observers. It was a Bearn pony, from twelve to fourteen years old, yellow in his hide, without a hair — Alexandre Dumas

I have looked at it with all possible attention," said Dantes, "and I only see a half-burnt paper, on which are traces of Gothic characters inscribed with a peculiar kind of ink. — Alexandre Dumas

Capricious and unfaithful, the king wished to be called Louis the Just and Louis the Chaste. Posterity will find a difficulty in understanding this character, which history explains only by facts and never by reason. — Alexandre Dumas

Why, in truth, sir," was Monte Cristo's reply, "man is but an ugly caterpillar for him who studies him through a solar microscope; but you said, I think, that I had nothing else to do. Now, really, let me ask, sir, have you? - do you believe you have anything to do? or to speak in plain terms, do you really think that what you do deserves being called anything? — Alexandre Dumas

The most curious spectacle in life is that of death. — Alexandre Dumas

Ah," said the jailer, "do not always brood over what is impossible, or you will be mad in a fortnight. — Alexandre Dumas

Having reached the summit of his vengeance by the slow and tortuous route that he had followed, he had looked over the far side of the mountain and into the abyss of doubt. — Alexandre Dumas

All for one and one for all. — Alexandre Dumas

Never trust the enemy that gives you presents — Alexandre Dumas

Utterly sure of himself, convinced of his power, certain that the laws that governed other men couldn't touch him, he made straight for any goal he set himself, however rarified and dazzling, even if it were folly for anyone else to even consider it. — Alexandre Dumas

The voice of human nature is nothing but one prolonged cry. — Alexandre Dumas

Joy to hearts which have suffered long is like the dew on the ground after a long drought; both the heart and the ground absorb that beneficent moisture falling on them, and nothing is outwardly apparant. — Alexandre Dumas

Dantes examined the various articles shown to him with the same attention that he had bestowed on the curiosities and strange tools exhibited in the shops at Marseilles as the works of the savages in the South Seas from whence they had been brought by the different trading vessels. — Alexandre Dumas

Don Quixote took windmills for giants and sheep for armies; d'Artagnan took every smile for an insult and every glance for a provocation. As a result of which he kept his fist clenched from Tarbes to Meung, and all in all brought his hand to the pommel of his sword ten times a day; however the fist never landed on any jaw, and the sword never left its scabbard. Not that the sight of the wretched yellow nag did not spread many smiles across the faces of passersby; but since above the nag clanked a sword of respectable size, and above this sword shone an eye more fierce than proud, the passersby restrained their hilarity, or, if hilarity won out over prudence, they tried at least to laugh on one side only, like antique masques. D'Artagnan thus remained majestic and intact in his susceptibility until that unfortunate town of Meung. — Alexandre Dumas

Although a companion is agreeable, perfect freedom is sometimes still more agreeable. I — Alexandre Dumas

When we show a friend a city one has already visited, we feel the same pride as when we point out a woman whose lover we have been. — Alexandre Dumas

I prefer the wicked rather than the foolish. The wicked sometimes rest. — Alexandre Dumas

The vague disquietude which prevailed among the spectators had so much affected one of the crowd that he did not await the arrival of the vessel in harbor, but jumping into a small skiff, desired to be pulled alongside the Pharaon, which he reached as she rounded into La Reserve basin. — Alexandre Dumas

I know that I have been a fool, a madman, to believe that the snow could have been animated, that the marble could grow warm; but what would you expect? The lover easily believes in love, nor has my journey been entirely in vain, since I behold you now. — Alexandre Dumas

In love, writing is dangerous, not to mention pointless. — Alexandre Dumas

There is no friendship that cares about an overheard secret. — Alexandre Dumas

The sea was calm with a fresh wind blowing from the south-east; they sailed under a sky of azure where God was also lighting up his lanterns, each one of which is a world. — Alexandre Dumas

the southern countries in which d'Artagnan had hitherto — Alexandre Dumas

It's necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live. — Alexandre Dumas

I never will leave you, for I am sure I could not exist without you. — Alexandre Dumas

Parrying like a man who had the greatest respect for his own epidermis. — Alexandre Dumas

Hands are indispensable for priests of the inferior orders, when they bestow the benediction. — Alexandre Dumas

And how did this misfortune occur? inquired the latter, resuming the interrupted conversation. — Alexandre Dumas

So rapid is the flight of dreams upon the wings of imagination. — Alexandre Dumas