Alexandre Dumas Quotes
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Athos liked every one to exercise his own free-will. He never gave his advice before it was demanded and even then it must be demanded twice. "In general, people only ask for advice," he said "that they may not follow it or if they should follow it that they may have somebody to blame for having given it".
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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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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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Without reflecting that this is the only moment in which you can study character," said the count; "on the steps of the scaffold death tears off the mask that has been worn through life, and the real visage is disclosed.
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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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Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it.
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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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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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......When one loves, one is only too ready to believe one's love returned.
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One always hurries towards happiness, Monsieur Danglars, because when one has suffered much, one is at pains to believe in it.
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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.
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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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There are misfortunes in life that no one will accept; people would rather believe in the supernatural and the impossible.
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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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It is the infirmity of our nature always to believe ourselves much more unhappy than those who groan by our sides!
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We must never expect discretion in first love: it is accompanied by such excessive joy that unless the joy is allowed to overflow, it will choke you.
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...know you not that you are my sun by day, and my star by night? By my faith! I was in deepest darkness till you appeared and illuminated all.
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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.
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But that's not the name of a man, it's the name of a mountain! "It is my name," Athos said calmly. "But you said your name was d'Artagnan." "I?" "Yes, you." "That is to say, someone said to me: 'You are M. d'Artagnan?' I replied: 'You think so?' My guards shouted that they were sure of it. I did not want to vex them. Besides, I might have been mistaken.
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Mastery of language affords one remarkable opportunities.
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Life is a storm. One minute you will bathe under the sun and the next you will be shattered upon the rocks. That's when you shout, "Do your worst, for I will do mine!" and you will be remembered forever.
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I am a count, not a saint.
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So he went down, smiling sceptically and mutter the final word in human wisdom: 'Perhaps!
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In love, writing is dangerous, not to mention pointless.