Best 251 quotes of Alexandre Dumas on MyQuotes

Ah," said the jailer, "do not always brood over what is impossible, or you will be mad in a fortnight.

All for one, one for all, that is our device.

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

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.

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.

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.

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".

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.

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.

Be kind. Aim for my heart.

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

Business? It's quite simple; it's other people's money.

...but my friends call me Edmund Dantes.

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.

But Valentine, why despair, why always paint the future in such sombre hues?" Maximilien asked. "Because, my friend, I judge it by the past.

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.

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.

Darling, replied Valentine, has not the count just told us that all human wisdom was contained in these two words,- "Wait and hope"?

D'Artagnan, my friend, thou art brave, thou art prudent, thou hast excellent qualities, but- women will destroy thee!" -D'Artagnan

D’Artagnan: Why is Athos sitting by himself? Aramis: He takes his drinking very seriously. Not to worry, he’ll be his usual charming self by morning.

...does that not tell you that grief is like life and that there is always somethings unknown beyond it?

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.

Edmond Dantes: I don't believe in God. Abbe Faria: That doesn't matter, He believes in you.

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

...for, however all other feelings may be withered in a woman's nature, there is always one bright smiling spot in the maternal breast, and that is where a dearly-beloved child is concerned.

For in those tacit understandings which maintain the bond of family union, the mother is really the mistress of her daughter only upon the condition of continually presenting herself to her as a model of wisdom and type of perfection.

For there are two distinct sorts of ideas: Those that proceed from the head and those that emanate from the heart.

God is always the last resource.

God is full of mercy for everyone, as He has been towards you. He is a father before He is a judge.

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

Haste is a poor counselor

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.

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

His fair landlady was in despair. She would most willingly have made M. d'Artagnan her husband--such a handsome man, and such a fierce mustache!

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

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

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

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.

I do not cling to life sufficiently to fear death.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

I love the life you've always made so sweet for me and I'd regret it if I had to die.' 'Do you mean to say that if I left you---' 'I'd die, yes.' 'Then you love me?

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

I prefer the wicked rather than the foolish. The wicked sometimes rest.