Alexandre Dumas Quotes
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You are young, and your bitter recollections have time to change themselves into sweet remembrances.'
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Hatred is blind; rage carries you away; and he who pours out vengeance runs the risk of tasting a bitter draught.
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In business, sir, one has no friends, only correspondents.
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The custom and fashion of today will be the awkwardness and outrage of tomorrow - so arbitrary are these transient laws.
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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.
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Drunk, if you like; so much the worse for those who fear wine, for it is because they have bad thoughts which they are afraid the liquor will extract from their hearts.
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There is a woman in every case; as soon as they bring me a report, I say, 'Look for the woman'.
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Ah," said the jailer, "do not always brood over what is impossible, or you will be mad in a fortnight.
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'We are never quits with those who oblige us,' was Dantes' reply; 'for when we do not owe them money, we owe them gratitude.'
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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!
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Truly generous men are always ready to become sympathetic when their enemy’s misfortune surpasses the limits of their hatred.
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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.
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A rogue does not laugh in the same way that an honest man does; a hypocrite does not shed the tears of a man of good faith. All falsehood is a mask; and however well made the mask may be, with a little attention we may always succeed in distinguishing it from the true face.
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You who are in power have only the means that money produces — we who are in expectation, have those which devotion prompts.
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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.
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Il y a une femme dans toutes les affaires; aussitôt qu'on me fait un rapport, je dis: «Cherchez la femme!»
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Sleeping on a plank has one advantage - it encourages early rising.
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For there are two distinct sorts of ideas: Those that proceed from the head and those that emanate from the heart.
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Why do you mention my father?' screamed he; 'Why do you mingle a recollection of him with the affairs of today?' Because I am he who saved your father's life when he wished to destroy himself, as you do today-because I am the man who sent the purse to your young sister, and the Paraon to Old Morrel-because I am the Edmond Dantes who nursed you, a child, on my knees.
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If you wish to discover the guilty person, first find out to whom the crime might be useful.
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I have always had more dread of a pen, a bottle of ink, and a sheet of paper than of a sword or pistol.
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Mastery of language affords one remarkable opportunities.
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Every individual, from the highest to the lowest degree, has his place in the ladder of social life, and around him swirls a little world of interests, composed of stormy passions and conflicting atoms.
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To be a woman condemned to a wretched and disgraceful punishment is no impediment to beauty, but it is an insurmountable obstacle to power. Like all persons of real genius, her ladyship well knew what accorded with her nature and her means. Poverty disgusted her -subjection deprived her of two-thirds of her greatness. Her ladyship was only a queen amongst queens: the enjoyment of satisfied pride was essential to her sway. To command beings of an inferior nature, was, to her, rather a humiliation than a pleasure.