Alfred Dreyfus Quotes

France, Officer
October 9, 1859 – July, 12, 1935.

Alfred Dreyfus was a French Jewish artillery officer whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most tense political dramas in modern French history with a wide echo in all Europe. Known today as the Dreyfus affair, the incident eventually ended with Dreyfus's complete exoneration.

To educate children is not merely to provide for their material, or even their intellectual life, but to assure them of the sympathy of their parents, to inspire them with confidence and the certainty that there is always one place where they can unburden their hearts and forget their pains and sorrows, trivial though these may ofttimes appear to us.

Alfred Dreyfus
How heavy must the responsibility weigh on those others who, in torturing an individual, are also abusing the confidence of an entire nation!

Alfred Dreyfus

For whatever the will and energy of a man may be, human strength has a limit, and this limit had been reached.

Alfred Dreyfus
- Energy
- Limit
- Reached
During these first days, when, in the disarray of mind and senses which was the consequence of the iniquitous sentence passed on me, I had resolved to kill myself, my dear wife, with her undaunted devotion and courage, made me realize that it is because I am innocent that I have not the right to abandon her or wilfully to desert my post.

Alfred Dreyfus
I shall struggle against the decline of body and brain and heart so long as a shadow of force is left me, so long as they leave me a spark of life. I must see the end of this dark tragedy.

Alfred Dreyfus
- Life
- Struggle
- Tragedy
In times of happiness we do not begin to perceive the strength of the mighty tenderness which the deep recesses of the heart hold for those we love. We need misfortune and the sense of suffering endured by those for whom we would give our last drop of blood, to learn the power of it.

Alfred Dreyfus
My little Pierre is now nearly five years old. He is quite a big boy. I used to wait with impatience for the time when I could take him with me and talk with him, opening his young mind, instilling into him the love of beauty and truth, and helping fashion for him so lofty a soul that the ugliness of life could not degrade it

Alfred Dreyfus
- Soul
- Boy
- Helping