Alexandre Dumas Quotes - Page 3

I do as I please, Monsieur Beauchamp, and believe me, what I do is always well done.

When you compare the sorrows of real life to the pleasures of the imaginary one, you will never want to live again, only to dream forever.

Never fear quarrels, but seek hazardous adventures.

Never be afraid of opportunities, always be on the lookout for adventures.

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.

Business? It's quite simple. It's other people's money.

Besides, we feel always a sort of mental superiority over those whose lives we know better than they suppose.

Happy! who can answer for that? Happiness or unhappiness is the secret known but to oneself…

In all well-organised brains, the predominating idea—and there always is one—is sure to be the last thought before sleeping, and the first upon waking in the morning. Andrea had scarcely opened his eyes when his predominating idea presented itself, and whispered in his ear that he had slept too long.

MY GOD!' read Monte Cristo, 'LET ME KEEP MY MEMORY!

In all times, and all countries especially in those countries which are divided within by religious faith, there are always fanatics who will be well contented to be regarded as martyrs.

All human wisdom is contained in these two words: 'wait' and 'hope'".

I do what I please, M. Beauchamp, and it is always well done.

What would you not have accomplished if you had been free?""Possibly nothing at all; the overflow of my brain would probably, in a state of freedom, have evaporated in a thousand follies; misfortune is needed to bring to light the treasures of the human intellect. Compression is needed to explode gunpowder. Captivity has brought my mental faculties to a focus; and you are well aware that from the collision of clouds electricity is produced — from electricity, lightning, from lightning, illumination.

Death is the only serious preoccupation in life.

...M. Danglars, who had listened to all this preamble with imperturbable coolness, but without understanding a word, engaged as he was, like every man burdened with thoughts of the past, in seeking the thread of his own ideas in those of the speaker.

My friend, let us enjoy the present and give no thought to the evils of the future.

God may seem sometimes to forget for a while, whilst his justice reposes, but there always comes a moment when he remembers.

God, who might have directed the assassin's dagger so as to end your career in a moment, has given you this quarter of an hour for repentance. Reflect, then, wretched man, and repent.

Utterly sure of himself, convinced of his power, certain that the laws that governed other men couldn't touch him, he made straight for any goal he set himself, however rarified and dazzling, even if it were folly for anyone else to even consider it.

As a general rule...people ask for advice only in order not to follow it; or if they do follow it, in order to have someone to blame for giving it.

No, monsieur,” returned Monte Cristo “upon the simple condition that they should respect myself and my friends. Perhaps what I am about to say may seem strange to you, who are socialists, and vaunt humanity and your duty to your neighbor, but I never seek to protect a society which does not protect me, and which I will even say, generally occupies itself about me only to injure me; and thus by giving them a low place in my esteem, and preserving a neutrality towards them, it is society and my neighbor who are indebted to me.

The King! I thought him enough of a philosopher to realize that there is no such thing as murder in politics. You know as well as I do, my dear boy, that in politics there are no people, only ideas; no feelings, only interests. In politics, you don't kill a man, you remove an obstacle, that's all.

True, I have raped history, but it has produced some beautiful offspring.

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!

Oh, Mercédès, I have spoken your name with sighs of melancholy, with groans of pain and with the croak of despair. I have spoken it frozen with cold, huddled on the straw of my dungeon. I have spoken it raging with heat and rolling around on the stone floor of my prison. Mercédès, I must have my revenge, because for fourteen years I suffered, fourteen years I wept and cursed. Now, I say to you, Mercédès, I must have my revenge!

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.

There are cancers so insidious in their nature that their very pulsation is invisible. Such cancers leave the ivory whiteness of the skin untouched, and marble not the firm, fair flesh, with their blue tints; the physician who bends over the patient's chest hears not, through he listens, the insatiable teeth of the disease grinding its onward progress through the muscles, as the blood flows freely on; the knife has never been able to destroy, and rarely even, temporarily, to discern the rage of these mortal scourges; their home is in the mind, which they corrupt; they fill the whole heart until it breaks. Such, madame, are the cancers, fatal to queens; are you, too, free from their scourge?

He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life. Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget, that until the day when God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words, - ‘Wait and hope.’ – Your friend, Edmond Dantes, Count of Monte Cristo. The eyes of both were fixed on the spot indicated by the sailor, and on the blue-line separating the sky from the Mediterranean Sea, they perceived a large white sail.

Why does a steward steal? He steals because he's not sure he'll always remain with his master and wants to make his future secure.

Nothing succeeds like success.