Quotes from Alexandre Dumas

He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness… Live, then and be happy beloved children of my heart and never forget that until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words – wait and hope.

I have no will, unless it be the will never to decide. I have been so overwhelmed by the many storms that have broken over my head, that I am become passive in the hands of the Almighty, like a sparrow in the talons of an eagle. I live, because it is not ordained for me to die.

If you wish to discover the guilty person, first find out to whom the crime might be useful.

But Valentine, why despair, why always paint the future in such sombre hues? Maximilien asked. Because, my friend, I judge it by the past.

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.

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.

I'm sure you're very nice, but you'd be even nicer if you went away.

Besides we are men, and after all it is our business to risk our lives.

A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself. He makes his failures certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.

Perhaps what I am about to say will appear strange to you gentlemen, socialists, progressives, humanitarians as you are, but I never worry about my neighbor, I never try to protect society which does not protect me -- indeed, I might add, which generally takes no heed of me except to do me harm -- and, since I hold them low in my esteem and remain neutral towards them, I believe that society and my neighbor are in my debt.

On what slender threads do life and fortune hang… !

I am a Count, Not a Saint.

Upon my word, said Dantes, you make me shudder. Is the world filled with tigers and crocodiles? Yes; and remember that two legged tigers and crocodiles are more dangerous than the others.

And now gentlemen, all for one, one for all - that is our motto, is it not?

In business, sir, one has no friends, only correspondents.

There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness.

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

Everyone knows that drunkards and lovers have a protecting diety.

It is the infirmity of our nature always to believe ourselves much more unhappy than those who groan by our sides!

know you not that you are my sun by day, and my star by night? By my faith! I was in deepest darkness till you appeared and illuminated all.

Order is the key to all problems.

He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness.

And now,' said the unknown, 'farewell kindness, humanity, and gratitude! Farewell to all the feelings that expand the heart! I have been heaven's substitute to recompense the good - now the god of vengeance yields to me his power to punish the wicked!

Mastery of language affords one remarkable opportunities.