Quotes from Alexandre Dumas

but philosophy at half-past ten at night is somewhat late;

If one's lot is cast among fools, it is necessary to study folly.

Not their application, certainly, but their principles you may; to learn is not to know; there are the learners and the learned. Memory makes the one, philosophy the other. But cannot one learn philosophy? 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.

My friend, she is a woman. No, no, you are deceived--she is a queen.

La felicidad hace buenos hasta a los malvados.

No man truly in love has ever let the hands of a clock go peacefully on their way.

This idea was one of vengeance to me, and I tasted it slowly in the night of my dungeon and the despair of my captivity.

A young man—we can sketch his portrait at a dash. Imagine to yourself a Don Quixote of eighteen; a Don Quixote without his corselet, without his coat of mail, without his cuisses; a Don Quixote clothed in a woolen doublet, the blue color of which had faded into a nameless shade between lees of wine and a heavenly azure; face long and brown;

What the count said was true—the most curious spectacle in life is that of death.

But tell me, said Beauchamp, what is life? Is it not a hall in Death's anteroom?

Yes, indeed, I have often thought with a bitter joy that these riches, which would make the wealth of a dozen families, will be forever lost to those men who persecute me. This idea was one of vengeance to me, and I tasted it slowly in the night of my dungeon and the despair of my captivity.

Captain or mate, M. Morrel, I shall always have the greatest respect for those who possess the owners' confidence.

Die! No, no!' He cried. 'It was not worth living so long, and suffering so much, to die now. Death was welcome previously when I made a resolution to meet it, many years ago. But now it would truly be conceding too much to my miserable fate. No, I want to live, I want to struggle to the end. No, I want to recover the happiness that has been taken away from me. I am forgetting that, before I die, I have my enemies to punish and, who knows?—perhaps a few friends to reward.

Oh Heaven! You sometimes bear with such injustice on earth, that I understand why there are wretches who doubt in your existence.

No matter; God wants Man, whom he has created and in whose heart he has so profoundly entrenched a love for life, to do all he can to preserve an existence that is sometimes so painful, but always so dear to him.

Do not be deceived: I am suffering less, because I have less strength in me to suffer. At your age, you have faith in life; it is a privilege of youth to believe and to hope. But old men see death more clearly.

La vita è un rosario di piccole miserie, che il filosofo sgrana ridendo. Siate filosofi come me signori: mettevi a tavola e beviamo: l'avvenire non sembra mai così roseo, come quando lo si guarda attraverso un bicchiere di chambertin

D'Artagnan looked his friend earnestly in the face. You know one thing, continued the comte, leaning upon the arm of the captain; you know that in the course of my life I have been afraid of but few things. Well! I have an incessant gnawing, insurmountable fear that an hour will come in which I shall hold the dead body of that boy in my arms.

Follow me, then," said the abbe, as he re-entered the subterranean passage, in which he soon disappeared, followed by Dantes.

D'Artagnan had time to reflect that women - those gentle doves - treat one another more cruelly than bears and tigers.

I have to admit,' replied Villefort, looking at his father with astonishment, 'you seem very well informed.' 'Heavens, it's simple enough. You people, who hold power, have only what can be bought for money; we, who are waiting to gain power, have what is given out of devotion.' 'Devotion?' Villefort laughed. 'Yes, devotion. That is the honest way to describe ambition when it has expectations.

in the shipwreck of life — for life is an eternal shipwreck of our hopes

Andrea was not very handsome, the hideous scoundrel

There is a very profound axiom in law, which is consistent with what I told you a short time ago, and it is this: unless an evil thought is born in a twisted mind, human nature is repelled by crime. However, civilization has given us needs, vices and artificial appetites which sometimes cause us to repress our good instincts and lead us to wrongdoing.1 Hence the maxim: if you wish to find the guilty party, first discover whose interests the crime serves!