Alexandre Dumas Quotes

117 Sourced Quotes

To learn is not to know; there are the learners and the learned. Memory makes the one, philosophy the other.

Alexandre Dumas
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
My friend, the pleasures to which we are not accustomed oppress us more than the griefs with which we are familiar.

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

Alexandre Dumas
I'd rather have ten soldiers to guard than a single scholar.

Alexandre Dumas
Among all animals, from man to the dog, the heart of a mother is always a sublime thing.

Alexandre Dumas
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.

Alexandre Dumas
Private misfortunes must never induce us to neglect public affairs.

Alexandre Dumas
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
I know what happiness and what despair are, and I never make a jest of such feelings.

Alexandre Dumas
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.

Alexandre Dumas
You are young, and your bitter recollections have time to change themselves into sweet remembrances.

Alexandre Dumas
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
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.

Alexandre Dumas
There are people who are willing to suffer and swallow their tears at leisure, and God will not 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. Do you intend to fight back at fate, Valentine? That's what I came here to ask you. -Maximilien Morrel

Alexandre Dumas
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.

Alexandre Dumas
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
All human wisdom is contained in these two words, Wait and Hope.

Alexandre Dumas
It's necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.

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

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

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

Alexandre Dumas
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
I am orderly out of spirit of idleness, to save myself the trouble of looking after things.

Alexandre Dumas
"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
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
Hatred is blind, anger is foolhardy, and he who pours out vengeance risks having to drink a bitter draft.

Alexandre Dumas
In all times, and all countries especially in those countries which are divided within by religious faith, there are always fanatics who will be well contented to be regarded as martyrs.

Alexandre Dumas