Alexandre Dumas Quotes
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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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You are young, and your bitter recollections have time to change themselves into sweet remembrances.'
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In business, sir, one has no friends, only correspondents.
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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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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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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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The custom and fashion of today will be the awkwardness and outrage of tomorrow - so arbitrary are these transient laws.
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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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'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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Truly generous men are always ready to become sympathetic when their enemy’s misfortune surpasses the limits of their hatred.
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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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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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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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The air in Provence is impregnated with the aroma of garlic, which makes it very healthful to breathe.
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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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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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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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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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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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Mastery of language affords one remarkable opportunities.
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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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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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I hate this life of the fashionable world, always ordered, measured, ruled, like our music-paper. What I have always wished for, desired, and coveted, is the life of an artist, free and independent, relying only on my own resources, and accountable only to myself.