Quotes from Alexandre Dumas

Is not a day divided into twenty-four hours, each hour into sixty minutes, and every minute sub-divided into sixty seconds? Now in 86,400 seconds many things can be done.

We are entitled to violate history, provided that it results in handsome offspring.

One must ask for death to know how good it is to live

But, it is well known, what strikes the capricious mind of the poet is not always what affects the mass of readers.

for the unfortunate man never alluded to his own sorrows.

En politique, mon cher, vous le savez comme moi, il n'y a pas d'hommes, mais des idées ; pas de sentiments, mais des intérêts ; en politique, on ne tue pas un homme : on supprime un obstacle, voilà tout.

Già, siete barone per i domestici, signore per i giornalisti, cittadino per i vostri elettori. Sono sfumature che si addicono assai a un governo costituzionale. Capisco perfettamente.

Poiché mi sembrate un intenditore d'arte, vi chiedo il permesso di mostrarvi un giorno o l'altro la mia galleria, ricca di quadri antichi, tutti di grandi autori; i moderni non mi piacciono. - Avete ragione; essi hanno, almeno, un grande difetto: di non aver avuto ancora il tempo di diventare antichi.

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.

I swear, you are frightening me! said Dantes. Is the world full of tigers and crocodiles then? Yes, except that the tigers and crocodiles with two legs are more dangerous than the rest.

death tears off the mask that has been worn through life, and the real visage is disclosed.

A man is always endowed by Heaven with too much for his own happiness, and just enough to make him miserable.

You are young, replied Athos, and your bitter memories have time to change into sweet ones.

I do not often laugh, sir," answered the unknown. "As you may yourself discover by the expression of my continence. But yet I mean to preserve the right of laughing when I please.

Geceleyin bütün kediler gridir.

Forward! Still forward! said he. When it shall be time, God will tell me, as he has told the others.

Sighs united together are almost prayers; prayers coming from two hearts are almost acts of grace.

My lord," said D'Artagnan, "Monsieur de Vallon [Porthos] is like me, he prefers service extraordinary—that is to say, enterprises that are considered mad and impossible.

What is offered from a generous heart should be accepted generously.

Very well, young man, very well, Treville went on, I know those airs. I came to Paris with four ecus in my pocket, and I'd have fought with anybody who told me I was in no condition to buy the Louvre.

As for herself, she returned to her seat with a smile of savage scorn upon her lips, and she blasphemously repeated the fearful name of that God by whom she had just sworn, without ever having learned to know Him. My God! said she. Fanatical fool! -My God is myself; and whoever will assist in my revenge!

Dantes was on the way he desired to follow, and was moving towards the end he wished to achieve; his heart was in a fair way of petrifying in his bosom.

And then, after the first blush of the admiration which he could not help feeling, he began to be tortured by the pangs of envy, by that slow fever which creeps over the heart and changes it into a nest of vipers, each devouring the other and ever born anew.

In presence of this ingenuous greatness of soul, Aramis felt himself little. It was the second time he had been compelled to bend before real superiority of heart, much more powerful than splendour of mind.