Alexandre Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo (1845)

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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.

Alexandre Dumas
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.

Alexandre Dumas
There is … a clever maxim which bears upon what I was saying to you some little while ago, and that is, that unless wicked ideas take root in a naturally depraved mind, human nature, in a right and wholesome state, revolts at crime. Still, from an artificial civilization have originated wants, vices, and false tastes, which occasionally become so powerful as to stifle within us all good feelings, and ultimately to lead us into guilt and wickedness...

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

Alexandre Dumas
If it is ones lot to be cast among fools, one must learn foolishness.

Alexandre Dumas
The friends we have lost do not repose under the ground...they are buried deep in our hearts. It has been thus ordained that they may always accompany us...

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

Alexandre Dumas
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?

Alexandre Dumas
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.

Alexandre Dumas
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
I fancy that a man was not intended to be so easily made happy. Happiness resembles those palaces of the enchanted isles whose doors were guarded by dragons—you must fight in order to be victorious.

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

Alexandre Dumas
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.

Alexandre Dumas
Youth is a blossom whose fruit is love; happy is he who plucks it after watching it slowly ripen.

Alexandre Dumas
(...) the tree forsakes not the flower: the flower falls from the tree.

Alexandre Dumas
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