Quotes from Alexandre Dumas

We shine like those fires and those stars; we sigh like those waves; we suffer like those great ships, which are worn out in ploughing the waves, in obeying the wind which urges them towards an end, as the breath of God blows us towards a port. Everything likes to live, Raoul; and everything is beautiful in living things.

And now,' said the stranger, 'farewell, goodness, humanity, gratitude... Farewell all those feelings that nourish and illuminate the heart! I have taken the place of Providence to reward the good; now let the avenging God make way for me to punish the wrongdoer!

He told himself that it was the enmity of man, and not the vengeance of heaven, that had thus plunged him into the deepest misery.

Vengeance in bloom shone in her eyes and smiled on her lips.

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.

Tous pour un, un pour tous

If a man has tortured and killed your father, your mother, your sweetheart, in short, one of those beings who leave an eternal emptiness and a perpetually bleeding wound when they are torn from your heart, do you think society has given you sufficient reparation because the blade of the guillotine has passed between the murderer's trapezius and his occipital bone, because the who made you undergo long years of mental and emotional suffering has undergone a few seconds of physical pain?

what despair to see a woman one loves longing for those thousand nothings from which women compose their happiness, and to be unable to give her those thousand nothings.

Speak, Madame; speak, queen, said Buckingham. The softness of your voice covers the hardness of your words. You speak of sacrilege, but the sacrilege is in the separation of hearts that God has formed for each other!

The heart of the best woman is pitiless toward the sorrows of a rival.

Those who are coerced by force become our enemies, those who succumb to reason become our allies.

What is death? One step further into calm and two perhaps into silence.

Dantes remained confused and silent by this explanation of the thoughts which had unconsciously been working in his mind, or rather soul; for there are two distinct sorts of ideas, those that proceed from the head and those from the heart.

I say, sir, you sir, who are hiding yourself behind that shutter—yes, you, sir, tell me what you are laughing at, and we will laugh together!

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

I have always heard it said that that is the rarest service, but the easiest to render. The remark struck me; I like to cite remarks that strike me.

take away this remaining doubt that, if it does not become a certainty, will turn into remorse.

Il y a les sachants et les savants: c'est la mémoire qui fait les uns, c'est la philosophie qui fait les autres. La philosophie ne s'apprend pas; la philosophie est la réunion des sciences acquises au génie qui les applique.

And how did this misfortune occur? inquired the latter, resuming the interrupted conversation.

The heart breaks when, after having been elated by flattering hopes, it sees all its illusions destroyed.

Philosophy cannot be taught; it is the application of the sciences to truth; it is like the golden cloud in which the Messiah went up into heaven.

Armed to the teeth? He had not even a knitting-needle.

Those who are born in a gilt cradle and have never wanted for anything, do not know what happiness life contains, just as they do not appreciate to the full a clear sky who have never entrusted their lives to the mercy of four planks on a raging sea.

I am - I am - And his almost closed lips uttered a name so low that the count himself appeared afraid to hear it.