Explore Quotes by 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The merit of all things lies in their difficulty.

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.

There is no friendship that cares about an overheard secret.

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?

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?

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.

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.

To be a woman condemned to a wretched and disgraceful punishment is no impediment to beauty, but it is an insurmountable obstacle to power. Like all persons of real genius, her ladyship well knew what accorded with her nature and her means. Poverty disgusted her -subjection deprived her of two-thirds of her greatness. Her ladyship was only a queen amongst queens: the enjoyment of satisfied pride was essential to her sway. To command beings of an inferior nature, was, to her, rather a humiliation than a pleasure.

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".

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

Love is the most selfish of all the passions.

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.

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