Alexandre Dumas famous quotes

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.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Grief #Able #World

For all evils there are two remedies - time and silence.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Two #Evil #Silence

Woman is sacred; the woman one loves is holy.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Women #Love Is #Sacred

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.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Country #Taken #Heart

Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Men #Rocks #Storm

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.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Love #Life #Men

Pure love and suspicion cannot dwell together: at the door where the latter enters, the former makes its exit.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Love #Life #Spiritual

Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Men #Feelings #Despair

Moral wounds have this peculiarity - they may be hidden, but they never close; always painful, always ready to bleed when touched, they remain fresh and open in the heart.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Pain #Heart #May

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
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Humble #Air #Sea

How did I escape? With difficulty. How did I plan this moment? With pleasure.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Moments #Pleasure #Difficulty

Those born to wealth, and who have the means of gratifying every wish, know not what is the real happiness of life, just as those who have been tossed on the stormy waters of the ocean on a few frail planks can alone realize the blessings of fair weather.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Happiness #Real #Ocean

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.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Hope #Children #Grief

There are two ways of seeing: with the body and with the soul. The body's sight can sometimes forget, but the soul remembers forever.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Sight #Two #Forever

I have always had more dread of a pen, a bottle of ink, and a sheet of paper than of a sword or pistol.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Ink #Bottles #Paper

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.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Horse #Adventure #Son

True love always makes a man better, no matter what woman inspires it.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Love #Positive #Men

Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Happiness #Fighting #Dragons

Never fear quarrels, but seek hazardous adventures.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Adventure #Quarrels #Never Fear

It is almost as difficult to keep a first class person in a fourth class job, as it is to keep a fourth class person in a first class job.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Motivational #Jobs #Class

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.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Gratitude #Blessed #Grateful

I prefer the wicked rather than the foolish. The wicked sometimes rest.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Intelligence #Intellectual #Wicked

What I’ve loved most after you, is myself: that is, my dignity and that strength which made me superior to other men. That Strength was my life. You’ve broken it with a word, so I must die.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Men #Broken #Dignity

...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.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Stars #Night #Darkness

When you compare the sorrows of real life to the pleasures of the imaginary one, you will never want to live again, only to dream forever.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Dream #Real #Forever

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

#Fool #Casts #Monte Cristo

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".
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Exercise #People #Advice

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.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Believe #Long #Fortune

Wait, and hope" (The Count of Monte Cristo)
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Waiting #Monte Cristo

The difference between treason and patriotism is only a matter of dates.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Differences #Matter #Treason

Ah, lips that say one thing, while the heart thinks another,
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Heart #Thinking #Lips

Unfortunates, who ought to begin with God, do not have any hope in him till they have exhausted all other means of deliverance.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Mean #Deliverance #Exhausted

One's work may be finished someday, but one's education never.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Education #Teaching #Math

If God were suddenly condemned to live the life which He has inflicted upon men, He would kill Himself.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Atheist #Live Life #Men

Women are never so strong as after their defeat.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Strength #Strong #Women

All for one and one for all, united we stand divided we fall.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Fall #Unity #United

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

#Happiness #Pride #Thinking

Learning does not make one learned: there are those who have knowledge and those who have understanding. The first requires memory and the second philosophy
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Memories #Philosophy #Understanding

So rapid is the flight of dreams upon the wings of imagination.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Dream #Wings #Imagination

The merit of all things lies in their difficulty.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Lying #Merit #Difficulty

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

#Happiness #Grief #Sadness

I am strong against everything, except against the death of those I love. He who dies gains; he who sees others die loses.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Strong #I Am Strong #Gains

How is it that little children are so intelligent and men so stupid? It must be education that does it.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Education #Children #Stupid

As a general rule...people ask for advice only in order not to follow it; or if they do follow it, in order to have someone to blame for giving it.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Order #People #Giving

A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Men #Doubt #Enemy

It is rare that one can see in a little boy the promise of a man, but one can almost always see in a little girl the threat of a woman.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Girl #Boys #Men

What a fool I was, not to tear my heart out on the day when I resolved to avenge myself!
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Heart #Tears #Fool

...joy takes a strange effect at times, it seems to oppress us almost the same as sorrow.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Joy #Sorrow #Strange

Are there not some places where we seem to breathe sadness? — why, we cannot tell. It is a chain of recollections — an idea which carries you back to other times, to other places — which, very likely, have no connection with the present time and place.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Sadness #Ideas #Connections

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.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Men #Perfect #Battle

I'm sure you're very nice, but you'd be even nicer if you went away.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Nice #Very Nice

If you wish to discover the guilty person, first find out to whom the crime might be useful.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Wish #Might #Firsts

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.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Real #Character #Tears

You who weep for pleasures fled, While dragging on a life of care, All your woes will melt in air, If to god your tears are shed, You who Weap!
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Air #Tears #Care

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.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Heart #Eye #Battle

The mother is only really the mistress of her daughter upon the condition of continually representing herself to her as a model of wisdom and type of perfection
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Daughter #Mother #Children

The custom and fashion of today will be the awkwardness and outrage of tomorrow - so arbitrary are these transient laws.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Fashion #Law #Awkward

God is merciful to all, as he has been to you; he is first a father, then a judge.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Father #Judging #Firsts

The wretched and the miserable should turn to their Savior first, yet they do not hope in Him until all other hope is exhausted.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Firsts #Exhausted #Miserable

Nothing makes time pass or shortens the way like a thought that absorbs in itself all the faculties of the one who is thinking. External existence is then like a sleep of which this thought is the dream. Under its influence, time has no more measure, space has no more distance.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Dream #Distance #Sleep

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.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Two #World #Remember

Be kind, aim for my heart.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Heart #Be Kind #Aim

And now...farewell to kindness, humanity and gratitude. I have substituted myself for Providence in rewarding the good; may the God of vengeance now yield me His place to punish the wicked.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Gratitude #Kindness #Farewell

There are some situations which men understand by instinct, by which reason is powerless to explain; in such cases the greatest poet is he who gives utterance to the most natural and vehement outburst of sorrow. Those who hear the bitter cry are as much impressed as if they listened to an entire poem, and when th sufferer is sincere they are right in regarding his outburst as sublime.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Sympathy #Men #Giving

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

#Heart #Men #Tears

There is no friendship that cares about an overheard secret.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Gossip #Secret #Care

That is a dream also; only he has remained asleep, while you have awakened; and who knows which of you is the most fortunate?
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Dream

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!
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Christian #Dog #Animal

I came to Paris with four écus in my pocket, and I’d have fought with anybody who told me I was in no condition to buy the Louvre.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Paris #Pockets #Four

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.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Opportunity #Men #Waiting

To save a man and thereby to spare a father's agony and a mother's feelings is not to do a noble deed, it is but an act of humanity.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Mother #Father #Men

On what slender threads do life and fortune hang.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Slender #Fortune #Thread

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.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Air #Laughing #May

Tell the angel who will watch over your life to pray now and then for a man who, like Satan, believed himself for an instant to be equal to God, but who realized in all humility that supreme power and wisdom are in the hands of God alone.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Humility #Angel #Men

Edmond Dantes: I don’t believe in God. Abbe Faria: That doesn’t matter, He believes in you…
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Believe #Matter #Believe In God

Kitty: I thought your ladyship was ill. I wanted to help you. Lady deWinter: I ill? Do you take me for a weak woman? When I am insulted I do not feel ill - I avenge myself. Do you hear?
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Helping #Weak #Kitties

I know what happiness and what despair are, and I never make a jest of such feelings. Take it, then, but in exchange —
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Feelings #Despair #Jest

Love is the most selfish of all the passions.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Selfish #Passion #Love Is

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.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Hate #Independent #Artist

It is not the tree that forsakes the flower, but the flower that forsakes the tree.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Flower #Tree

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.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#First Love #Joy #Firsts

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

#Sweet #Memories #Bitter

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.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Fall #Heart #Long

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.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Rocks #Forever #Storm

Why, in truth, sir," was Monte Cristo's reply, "man is but an ugly caterpillar for him who studies him through a solar microscope; but you said, I think, that I had nothing else to do. Now, really, let me ask, sir, have you? — do you believe you have anything to do? or to speak in plain terms, do you really think that what you do deserves being called anything?
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Believe #Men #Thinking

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.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Men #Thinking #Names

Order is the key to all problems.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Keys #Order #Problem

Sometimes one has suffered enough to have the right to never say: I am too happy.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Sometimes #Enough

Happiness is egotistical.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Egotistical

Mastery of language affords one remarkable opportunities.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Opportunity #Mastery #Language

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
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Bored #Desire #Hungry

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.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Heart #Wine #Liquor

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.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Children #Father #Men

Everyone knows that drunkards and lovers have a protecting diety.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Lovers

True, I have raped history, but it has produced some beautiful offspring.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Beautiful #Offspring

Haste is a poor counselor
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Haste #Poor #Counselor

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.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Kings #Character #Understanding

He's right: They have to put madmen with madmen.
-- Alexandre Dumas

#Madmen

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

#Believe #People #Impossible

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

#Doubt #Would Be #Charming