Quotes from Alexandre Dumas

unless wicked ideas take root in a naturally depraved mind, human nature, in a right and wholesome state, revolts at crime.

As I look at it, a millionth part of a railway is worth fully as much as an acre of waste land on the banks of the Ohio.

However much a man is inured to taking risks, however well prepared he is for danger, the fluttering of his heart and the pricking of his skin will always let him know the vast difference that lies between dream and reality, planning and execution.

He must be a vampire.

lo mejor es enemigo de lo bueno.

Truly generous men are always ready to feel compassion when their enemy's misfortune exceeds the bounds of their hatred.

to a happy man, a prayer is a monotonous composition, void of meaning, until the day when suffering deciphers the sublime language through which the poor victim addresses God.

All the pious ideas that had been so long forgotten, returned; he recollected the prayers his mother had taught him, and discovered a new meaning in every word; 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!

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 very many things can be done.

but he found him as he had seen him six weeks earlier, that is to say calm, firm and full of the distant good manners that make up the most impenetrable of barriers separating a well-bred man from one of the people.

Before we are alarmed, we see correctly; when we are alarmed, we see double; and when we have been alarmed, we see nothing but trouble.

He felt he had passed beyond the bounds of vengeance, and that he could no longer say, God is for and with me.

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. We

On the first Monday of the month of April, 1625, the market town of Meung, in which the author of ROMANCE OF THE ROSE was born

worried capitalist is like a comet: he always presages some disaster for the world.

What, no wine? said Dantes, turning pale, and looking alternately at the hollow cheeks of the old man and the empty cupboards. What, no wine? Have you wanted money, father?

L]earn how to distinguish the king from royalty; the king is but a man; royalty is the gift of God. Whenever you hesitate as to whom you ought to serve, abandon the exterior, the material for the invisible principle, for the invisible principle is everything.

One could guess that there was the delicate forethought of a mother behind this choice of the pavillon for Albert: while not wanting to be separated from her son, she nevertheless realized that a young man of the viscount's age needed all his freedom. On the other hand, it must be said that one could also recognize in this the intelligent egoism of the young man, the son of wealthy parents, who enjoyed the benefits of a free and idle life, which was gilded for him like a birdcage.

Abbé Faria: "... to learn is not to know; there are learners and the learned. Memory makes the one, philosophy the other. Edmond Dantès: "But can I not learn philosophy as well as other things?" "My son, philosophy, as I understand it, is reducible to no rules by which it can be learned; it is the amalgamation of all the sciences, the golden cloud which bears the soul to heaven.

It is a bad year for kings," said Gondy, shaking his head; "look at England, madame." "Yes; but fortunately we have no Oliver Cromwell in France," replied the Queen. "Who knows?" said Gondy; "such men are like thunderbolts—one recognized them only when they have struck.

The sea was calm with a fresh wind blowing from the south-east; they sailed under a sky of azure where God was also lighting up his lanterns, each one of which is a world.

Oh, thank me again!" said the count; "tell me till you are weary, that I have restored you to happiness; you do not know how much I require this assurance.

When we show a friend a city one has already visited, we feel the same pride as when we point out a woman whose lover we have been.

At the end of ten minutes fifty thousand lights glittered, descending from the Palazzo di Venezia to the Piazza del Popolo, and mounting from the Piazzo del Popolo to the Palazzo di Venezia. It seemed like the fete of jack-o'-lanterns. It is impossible to form any idea of it without having seen it. Suppose that all the stars had descended from the sky and mingled in a wild dance on the face of the earth; the whole accompanied by cries that were never heard in any other part of the world.