Alexandre Dumas Quotes
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All human wisdom is contained in these words: Wait and hope!
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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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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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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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You scholars, you're in communication with the devil.
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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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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.
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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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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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You are young, and your bitter recollections have time to change themselves into sweet remembrances.'
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'Weep,' said Athos, 'weep, heart full of love, youth, and life! Alas, would I could weep like you!'
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My friend, the pleasures to which we are not accustomed oppress us more than the griefs with which we are familiar.
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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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If you wish to discover the guilty person, first find out to whom the crime might be useful.
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It was like the eve of a battle; the hearts beat, the eyes laughed, and they felft that the life they were perhaps going to lose, was after all, a good thing.
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In politics, my dear fellow, you know, as well as I do, there are no men, but ideas — no feelings, but interests; in politics we do not kill a man, we only remove an obstacle, that is all.
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The air in Provence is impregnated with the aroma of garlic, which makes it very healthful to breathe.
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There is neither happiness nor unhappiness in this world; there is only the comparison of one state with another. Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss. It is necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.....the sum of all human wisdom will be contained in these two words: Wait and Hope.
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But Valentine, why despair, why always paint the future in such sombre hues?" Maximilien asked. "Because, my friend, I judge it by the past.
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There are people who are willing to suffer and swallow their tears at leisure, and God will no doubt reward them in heaven for their resignation; but those who have the will to struggle strike back at fate in retaliation for the blows they receive.
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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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Truly generous men are always ready to become sympathetic when their enemy’s misfortune surpasses the limits of their hatred.
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Dantes passed through all the stages of torture natural to prisoners in suspense. He was sustained at first by that pride of conscious innocence which is the sequence to hope; then he began to doubt his own innocence, which justified in some measure the governor's belief in his mental alienation; and then, relaxing his sentiment of pride, he addressed his supplications, not to God, but to man. God is always the last resource. Unfortunates, who ought to begin with God, do not have any hope in him till they have exhausted all other means of deliverance.
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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.