Alexandre Dumas Quotes

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

“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, The Count of Monte Cristo

“Look, look,' cried the count, seizing the young man's hands - "look, for on my soul it is curious. Here is a man who had resigned himself to his fate, who was going to the scaffold to die - like a coward, it is true, but he was about to die without resistance. Do you know what gave him strength? - do you know what consoled him? It was, that another partook of his punishment - that another partook of his anguish - that another was to die before him. Lead two sheep to the butcher's, two oxen to the slaughterhouse, and make one of them understand that his companion will not die; the sheep will bleat for pleasure, the ox will bellow with joy. But man - man, who God created in his own image - man, upon whom God has laid his first, his sole commandment, to love his neighbour - man, to whom God has given a voice to express his thoughts - what is his first cry when he hears his fellowman is saved? A blasphemy. Honour to man, this masterpiece of nature, this king of the creation!”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“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, The Count of Monte Cristo

“I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the color-line I move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded halls. From out the caves of the evening that swing between the strong-limbed earth and the tracery of the stars, I summon Aristotle and Aurelius... and they come all graciously with no scorn nor condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the Veil.”
― W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk

“The king! I thought he was philosopher enough to allow that there was no murder in politics. 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, The Count of Monte Cristo

“You are my son Dantés! You are the child of my captivity. My priestly office condemned me to celibacy: God sent you to me both to console the man who could not be a father and the prisoner who could not be free”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“I acted hastily towards him. Haste is a poor counsellor: I acted wrongly.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“However much a man is inured to taking risks, however well prepared he is for danger, the fluttering of his heart and the pricking of his skin will always let him know the vast difference that lies between dream and reality, planning and execution.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“It is a kind of dizzying comfort to contemplate the open abyss when, at the bottom of that abyss, lies nothingness.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“All men are scoundrels and I am happy to be able to do more than hate them: now I despise them.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“...he sat down in the chair and went over in his mind everything that in the past week or so had filled his cup of bitter sorrows and dark memories to overflowing.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“The demon which had whispered this idea to him would not leave him, buzzing in his ear with that persistence which rapidly ensures that some doubts, by the sole force of reasoning, become certainties.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“No halfway emotions can exist in a heart swollen with utmost despair.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“Alas, mother, there are people who have suffered greatly, and who did not die, but raised a new fortune on the ruins of all those promises of happiness that heaven had made to them, and on the debris of all the hopes that God had given them!”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“I think that I have known you for a year; that, on the day we met, I wagered all my chances of happiness on your love; that the day came when you told me that you loved me; and that from that day forward I have staked all my future on having you. That has been my life. Now, I no longer think anything. All I can tell myself is that fate has turned against me, that I expected to win heaven and I have lost it. It happens every day that a gambler loses not only what he has, but also what he does not have.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“In every well-organized mind the dominant idea - and there always is a dominant idea - is the one which, being the last to go to sleep, is also the first to shine among the newly awakened thoughts.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“Do you know what you have done, wise as you are? I have waited a month, which means I have suffered a month. I hoped-man is such a poor and miserable creature-I hoped, for what? I don't know: something unimaginable, absurd, senseless, a miracle...but what? God alone knows, for it was He who diluted our reason with that madness called hope.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“When all is said Dumas fils (or is it Dumas père?) is right. After God Shakespeare has created most.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

“Yes, that's as may be; but what about the condemned man?'
'Also a dream, except that he remained asleep, while you woke up. Who can tell which of you is the more fortunate?”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“I do believe, Albert, that you are quite set this morning on feeding me with illusions."
'Ah, you must admit that's the diet that best satisfies the stomach.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“Poor souls! If it is not right to love them, is it not well to pity them? You pity the blind man who has never seen the daylight, the deaf who has never heard the harmonies of nature, the dumb who has never found a voice for his soul, and, under a false cloak of shame, you will not pity this blindness of heart, this deafness of soul, this dumbness of conscience, which sets the poor afflicted creature beside herself and makes her, in spite of herself, incapable of seeing what is good,”
― Alexandre Dumas (Fils), La dame aux camélias

“Perhaps, instead of accusing destiny, the king should have remembered that, as is generally the case with mankind, he was the author of his own misfortunes...”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Nutcracker

“The grand master of the ceremonies then stated that the strangers were of a most villainous appearance, and could not possibly be worse dressed. But the king answered that it was wrong to judge the heart by the countenance, and the gown did not make the parson.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Nutcracker

“In a word, all kinds of wonderful and extraordinary things may there be seen by those who have eyes sharp enough to discover them.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Nutcracker

“In politica non ci sono omicidi. In politica, lo sapete come me, mio caro, non ci sono uomini, ma solo idee; non ci sono sentimenti, ma interessi. In politica non si uccide un uomo, si elimina un ostacolo, e basta.”
― Alexandre Dumas, Il conte di Montecristo - volume 1

“- Voi che avete il potere avete solo i mezzi forniti dal denaro; noi, che lo aspettiamo, abbiamo quelli forniti dalla devozione. -
- Devozione? - chiese Villefort ridendo.
- Si, devozione: è così che si chiama, in termini decenti, l’ambizione che spera. -”
― Alexandre Dumas, Il conte di Montecristo - volume 1

“My dear friend, of what consequence is it if she kills me?' said Athos. 'Do you, perchance, think I set any great store by life?”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers

“A benefit reproached is an offense committed.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers

“I do not hold life dear enough to be afraid of death.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers