Alexandre Dumas Quotes - Page 2

Time, dear friend, time brings round opportunity; opportunity is the martingale of man. The more we have ventured the more we gain, when we know how to wait.

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

Be kind. Aim for my heart.

Often we pass beside happiness without seeing it, without looking at it, or even if we have seen and looked at it, without recognizing it.

So heavy is the chain of wedlock that it needs two to carry it, and sometimes three.

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.

Moral wounds have this peculiarity - they may be hidden, but they never close; always painful, always ready to bleed when touched, they remain fresh and open in the heart.

Those born to wealth, and who have the means of gratifying every wish, know not what is the real happiness of life, just as those who have been tossed on the stormy waters of the ocean on a few frail planks can alone realize the blessings of fair weather.

A rogue does not laugh in the same way that an honest man does; a hypocrite does not shed the tears of a man of good faith. All falsehood is a mask; and however well made the mask may be, with a little attention we may always succeed in distinguishing it from the true face.

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.

Philosophy cannot be taught; it is the application of the sciences to truth.

Haste is a poor counselor

There are misfortunes in life that no one will accept; people would rather believe in the supernatural and the impossible.

Woman is sacred; the woman one loves is holy.

Life is a storm. One minute you will bathe under the sun and the next you will be shattered upon the rocks. That's when you shout, "Do your worst, for I will do mine!" and you will be remembered forever.

Order is the key to all problems.

It is rare that one can see in a little boy the promise of a man, but one can almost always see in a little girl the threat of a woman.

I have always had more dread of a pen, a bottle of ink, and a sheet of paper than of a sword or pistol.

For the happy man prayer is only a jumble of words, until the day when sorrow comes to explain to him the sublime language by means of which he speaks to God.

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.

Edmond Dantes: I don't believe in God. Abbe Faria: That doesn't matter, He believes in you.

I do not cling to life sufficiently to fear death.

To learn is not to know; there are the learners and the learned. Memory makes the one, philosophy the others.

I am strong against everything, except against the death of those I love. He who dies gains; he who sees others die loses.

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