Quotes from Alexandre Dumas

by degrees they waxed more and more angry by their own shouts, and as they were not able to understand how any one could have courage without showing it by cries, they attributed the silence of the dragoons to pusillanimity, and advanced one step towards the prison, with all the turbulent mob following in their wake.

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

Around the table reigned that noisy hilarity which usually prevails at such a time among people sufficiently free from the demands of social position not to feel the trammels of etiquette.

Treville understood admirably well the warfare of that period, when, if you did not live at the enemy's expense, you lived at the expense of your compatriots: his soldiers formed a legion of daredevils, undisciplined for anyone else but him.

Today's friends are tomorrow's enemies.

As we have seen, Villefort belonged to the nobility of the town and M. Morrel to the plebeian part of it: the former was an extreme Royalist, the latter suspected of harbouring Bonapartist sympathies. Villefort looked contemptuously at Morrel and answered coldly: 'You know, Monsieur, that one can be mild in one's private life, honest in one's business dealings and skilled in one's work, yet at the same time, politically speaking, be guilty of great crimes.

It was only then that he met Villefort's dull gaze, that look peculiar to men of the law who do not want anyone to read their thoughts, and so make their eyes into unpolished glass. The look reminded him that he was standing before Justice, a figure of grim aspect and manners.

My commands are ordinarily short, clear, and precise; and I would rather be obliged to repeat my words twice, or even three times, than they should be misunderstood.

Moral wounds have the peculiarity that they are invisible, but do not close: always painful, always ready to bleed when touched, they remain tender and open in the heart.

Oh, said the count, I only know two things which destroy the appetite, — grief — and as I am happy to see you very cheerful, it is not that — and love. Now after what you told me this morning of your heart, I may believe —

The prisoner followed his guide, who led him into a room almost under ground, whose bare and reeking walls seemed as though impregnated with tears

for in prosperity prayers seem but a mere medley of words, until misfortune comes and the unhappy sufferer first understands the meaning of the sublime language in which he invokes the pity of heaven!

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

This being understood, let us proceed with our history.

Really, monsieur, I should regard you as a coward, and a traitor too, if I did not, with greater justice, regard you as a madman.

Have you no friends who could help you in these circumstances?' Morrel smiled sadly and said: 'In business, Monsieur, as you very well know, one has no friends, only associates.

As usual, the oldest women were the most decorated, and the ugliest the most conspicuous. If there was a beautiful lily, or a sweet rose, you had to search for it, concealed in some corner behind a mother with a turban, or an aunt with a bird of paradise.

Valentine reposes within the walls of Paris, and to leave Paris is like losing her a second time. Maximilian, said the count, the friends that we have lost do not repose in the bosom of the earth, but are buried deep in our hearts, and it has been thus ordained that we may always be accompanied by them.

I am no longer a reasoning creature; I have no will, unless it be the will never to decide.

As to the new pope, scarcely had he completed the formalities of etiquette which his exaltation imposed upon him, and paid to each man the price of his simony, when from the height of the Vatican he cast his eyes upon Europe, a vast political game of chess, which he cherished the hope of directing at the will of his own genius.

Des par tous et tous par un.

It was a murder, nothing more. Athos

he is anxious to know how you have been employed during your long absence from him, how you have been treated by your persecutors, and if they have conducted themselves towards you with all the deference due to your rank. Finally, he is anxious to see if you have been fortunate enough to escape the bad moral influence to which you have been exposed, and which is infinitely more to be dreaded than any physical suffering;

People, in general, he said, only ask advice not to follow it; or if they do follow it, it is for the sake of having someone to blame for having given it.