Top 183 Quotes & Sayings by Alexandre Dumas - Page 2

In business, sir, one has no friends, only correspondents.

If it is ones lot to be cast among fools, one must learn foolishness.-The Count of Monte Cristo

You are very amiable, no doubt, but you would be charming if you would only depart.

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.

So much the worse for those who fear wine, for it is because they have some bad thoughts which they are afraid the liquor will extract from their hearts.

Through the ingenuousness of her age beamed an ardent mind, a mind not of the women but of the poet; she did not please, she intoxicated.

Be happy, noble heart, be blessed for all the good thou hast done and wilt do hereafter, and let my gratitude remain in obscurity like your good deeds.

Truly generous men are always ready to become sympathetic when their enemy’s misfortune surpasses the limits of their hatred.

Women are never so strong as after their defeat.

Ah, lips that say one thing, while the heart thinks another.

Does the open wound in another's breast soften the pain of the gaping wound in our own? Or does the blood which is welling from another man's side staunch that which is pouring from our own? Does the general anguish of our fellow creatures lessen our own private and particular anguish? No, no, each suffers on his own account, each struggles with his own grief, each sheds his own tears.

We’ll go where the air is pure, where all sounds are soothing, where, no matter how proud one may be, one feels humble and finds oneself small- in short, we’ll go to the sea. I love the sea as one loves a mistress and I long for her when I haven’t seen her for some time

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.

A weakened mind always sees everything through a black veil. The soul makes its own horizons; your soul is dark, which is why you see such a cloudy sky.

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.

Upon my word," said Dantes, "you make me shudder. Is the world filled with tigers and crocodiles?" "Yes; and remember that two legged tigers and crocodiles are more dangerous than the others.

I am hungry, feed me; I am bored, amuse me.

I have been taken by Satan into the highest mountain in the earth, and when there he said he to me, ‘Child of earth, what wouldst thou have to make thee adore me?’ I replied, ‘Listen, I wish to be Providence myself, for I feel that the most beautiful, noblest, most sublime thing in the world, is to recompense and punish.

Everyone knows that drunkards and lovers have a protecting diety.

How did I escape? With difficulty. How did I plan this moment? With pleasure!

When a man resolves to avenge himself, he should first of all tear out the heart from his breast.

There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must of felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life. " Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget, that until the day God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words, 'Wait and Hope.

It is only the dead who do not return.

Misfortune does not help us to believe.

Time, dear friend, time brings round opportunity; opportunity is the martingale of man. The more we have ventured the more we gain, when we know how to wait.

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.

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!

I do not often laugh, sir, as you may perceive by the air of my countenance; but nevertheless, I retain the privilege of laughing when I please.

On what slender threads do life and fortune hang.

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.

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.

No, I slept as I always do when I am bored and have not the courage to amuse myself, or when I am hungry and have not the desire to eat.--The Count of Monte Cristo

My son, be worthy of your noble name, worthily borne by your ancestors for over five hundred years. Remember it’s by courage, and courage alone, that a nobleman makes his way nowadays. Don’t be afraid of opportunities, and seek out adventures. My son, all I have to give you is fifteen ecus, my horse, and the advice you’ve just heard. Make the most of these gifts, and have a long, happy life.

In love, writing is dangerous, not to mention pointless.

In every country where independence has taken the place of liberty, the first desire of a manly heart is to possess a weapon which at once renders him capable of defence or attack, and, by rendering its owner fearsome, makes him feared.

The wretched and miserable should turn to their Saviour first, yet they do not hope in Him until all other hope is exhausted.

We are never quits with those who oblige us," was Dantes' reply; "for when we do not owe them money, we owe them gratitude.

We are always in a hurry to be happy...; for when we have suffered a long time, we have great difficulty in believing in good fortune.

I am a count, not a saint.

...but my friends call me Edmund Dantes.

Never fear quarrels, but seek hazardous adventures.

Perhaps what I am about to say will appear strange to you gentlemen, socialists, progressives, humanitarians as you are, but I never worry about my neighbor, I never try to protect society which does not protect me -- indeed, I might add, which generally takes no heed of me except to do me harm -- and, since I hold them low in my esteem and remain neutral towards them, I believe that society and my neighbor are in my debt.

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

So rapid is the flight of our dreams upon the wings of imagination.

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.

Your bitter memories still have time to turn into sweet ones.

...remember that what has once been done may be done again.

I am not proud, but I am happy; and happiness blinds, I think, more than pride.

There are misfortunes in life that no one will accept; people would rather believe in the supernatural and the impossible.

He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness.

Oh! The good times when we were so unhappy.

Haste is a poor counselor

So, preferring death to capture, I accomplished the most astonishing deeds, and which, more then once, showed me that the too great care we take of our bodies is the only obstacle to the sucess of those projects which require rapid decision, and vigorous and determined execution. In reality, when you have once devoted your life to your enterprises, you are no longer the equal of other men, or, rather, other men are no longer your equals, and whosoever has taken this resolution, feels his strength and resources doubled.

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.

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.

Wait and hope!

Yet man will never be perfect until he learns to create and destroy; he does know how to destroy, and that is half the battle.

Besides we are men, and after all it is our business to risk our lives.

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.

Here is your final lesson - do not commit the crime for which you now serve the sentence. God said, "Vengeance is mine." [...] He believes in you.