Top 500 Alexandre Dumas Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “Besides, the storm which rages in her breast was increasing in its violence, and she would have burst her prison walls if her body could have enjoyed, for a single instant, the same proportions as her soul.”

— Alexandre Dumas

202. “That is a dream also; only he has remained asleep, while you have awakened; and who knows which of you is the most fortunate?”

— Alexandre Dumas

203. “Life is very tenacious in these lawyers.”

— Alexandre Dumas

204. “What difference is there between the figure of the conqueror and that of the pirate?” said the ancients. The difference only between the eagle and the vulture, – serenity or restlessness.”

— Alexandre Dumas

205. “I shall reply that I really do look upon him as one of Byron’s heroes, whom misery has marked with a fatal brand; some Manfred, some Lara, some Werner, one of those wrecks, as it were, of some ancient family, who, disinherited of their patrimony, have achieved one by the force of their adventurous genius, which has placed them above the laws of society.” “You.”

— Alexandre Dumas

206. “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, appeared to be in as perfect a state of revolution as if the Huguenots had just made a second La Rochelle of it.”

— Alexandre Dumas

207. “We shine like those fires and those stars; we sigh like those waves; we suffer like those great ships, which are worn out in ploughing the waves, in obeying the wind which urges them towards an end, as the breath of God blows us towards a port. Everything likes to live, Raoul; and everything is beautiful in living things.”

— Alexandre Dumas

208. “Those who are born with a silver spoon,’ Emmanuel said, ’those who have never needed anything, do not understand what happiness is, any more than those who do not know the blessing of a clear sky and who have never entrusted their lives to four planks tossing on a raging sea.”

— Alexandre Dumas

209. “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.”

— Alexandre Dumas

210. “No man truly in love has ever let the hands of a clock go peacefully on their way.”

— Alexandre Dumas

211. “Vengeance in bloom shone in her eyes and smiled on her lips.”

— Alexandre Dumas

212. “A man has carried off your mistress, a man has seduced your wife, a man has dishonored your daughter; he has rendered the whole life of one who had the right to expect from heaven that portion of happiness God has promised to every one of his creatures, an existence of misery and infamy; and you think you are avenged because you send a ball through the head, or pass a sword through the breast, of that man who has planted madness in your brain, and despair in your heart.”

— Alexandre Dumas

213. “I have seen the heavens open, the sea rage and foam, the storm rise in a patch of sky and like a gigantic eagle beat the two horizons with its wings.”

— Alexandre Dumas

214. “One!” said the count mysteriously, his eyes fixed on the corpse, disfigured by so awful a death.”

— Alexandre Dumas

215. “Death is perhaps an ordeal, but it is not an expiation.”

— Alexandre Dumas

216. “God may sometimes appear to forget, when his justice is resting; but the time always comes when he remembers...”

— Alexandre Dumas

217. “You scholars, you’re in communication with the devil.”

— Alexandre Dumas

218. “He was a fine, tall, slim young fellow, with black eyes, and hair as dark as the raven’s wing; and his whole appearance bespoke that calmness and resolution peculiar to men accustomed from their cradle to contend with danger.”

— Alexandre Dumas

219. “One always hurries towards happiness, Monsieur Danglars, because when one has suffered much, one is at pains to believe in it.”

— Alexandre Dumas

220. “O grande ville! c’ est dans ton sein palpitant que j’ai trouve ce que je cherchais; mineur patient, j’ai remue tes entrailles pour en faire sortir le mal; maintenant, mon oeuvre est accomplie, ma mission est terminee; maintenant tu ne peux plus m’ofrir ni joies ni douleurs. Adieu, Paris,! adieu!”

— Alexandre Dumas

221. “The cause was not in Dantes, but in providence, who, while limiting the power of man, has filled him with boundless desires.”

— Alexandre Dumas

222. “No matter; God wants Man, whom he has created and in whose heart he has so profoundly entrenched a love for life, to do all he can to preserve an existence that is sometimes so painful, but always so dear to him.”

— Alexandre Dumas

223. “Monsieur Morcerf,” said Danglars, pale with anger and fear, “if I find a mad dog in my path I kill it and, far from feeling guilty about it, I feel that I have rendered a service to society. If you are mad and try to bite me, I warn you that I will kill you without pity. Is it my fault that your father is dishonored?”

— Alexandre Dumas

224. “I have lost all that bound me to life; now death smiles on me as a nurse smiles on the child she is about to rock to sleep; now welcome death!” No sooner had this idea taken possession of the unhappy young man than he became more calm and resigned;.”

— Alexandre Dumas

225. “For hearts which have long suffered, happiness is like dew on soil parched by the sun: both heart and earth absorb this beneficial rain as it falls on them, and nothing appears on the surface.”

— Alexandre Dumas

226. “This being understood, let us proceed with our history.”

— Alexandre Dumas

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

— Alexandre Dumas

228. “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.”

— Alexandre Dumas

229. “Everyone knows that drunkards and lovers have a protecting diety.”

— Alexandre Dumas

230. “Take care, my worthy host,” said Albert, “better is a sure enemy to well.”

— Alexandre Dumas

231. “Son,’ Danglars replied.”

— Alexandre Dumas

232. “You talk like a noodle, my friend.”

— Alexandre Dumas

233. “In love, writing is dangerous, not to mention pointless.”

— Alexandre Dumas

234. “Tree forsakes not the flower – the flower falls from the tree.”

— Alexandre Dumas

235. “It is almost as difficult to keep a first class person in a fourth class job, as it is to keep a fourth class person in a first class job.”

— Alexandre Dumas

236. “Yes, indeed, I have often thought with a bitter joy that these riches, which would make the wealth of a dozen families, will be forever lost to those men who persecute me. This idea was one of vengeance to me, and I tasted it slowly in the night of my dungeon and the despair of my captivity.”

— Alexandre Dumas

237. “It was like the eve of a battle; the hearts beat, the eyes laughed, and they felft that the life they were perhaps going to lose, was after all, a good thing.”

— Alexandre Dumas

238. “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.”

— Alexandre Dumas

239. “Where did I meet him before – this buckbasket of fat, this full-moon face of purple, and this carriage of a sacred elephant?”

— Alexandre Dumas

240. “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.”

— Alexandre Dumas

241. “And what solitude is more vast and more poetic than that of a ship sailing alone on the sea, in the darkness of night and the silence of infinity, under the eye of the Lord?”

— Alexandre Dumas

242. “We had forgotten to say that Jacopo was a Corsican.”

— Alexandre Dumas

243. “He pointed out to him the bearings of the coast, explained to him the variations of the compass, and taught him to read in that vast book opened over our heads which they call heaven, and where God writes in azure with letters of diamonds.”

— Alexandre Dumas

244. “Ei kukaan ole niin ahne vapaapaikoille kuin miljoonien omistajat.”

— Alexandre Dumas

245. “There is a sort of consolation at the contemplation of the yawning abyss, at the bottom of which lie darkness and obscurity. Edmond.”

— Alexandre Dumas

246. “I am he whom you sold and dishonored – I am he whose betrothed you prostituted – I am he upon whom you trampled that you might raise yourself to fortune – I am he whose father you condemned to die of hunger – I am he whom you also condemned to starvation, and who yet forgives you, because he hopes to be forgiven – I am Edmund Dantes!”

— Alexandre Dumas

247. “Those who are coerced by force become our enemies, those who succumb to reason become our allies.”

— Alexandre Dumas

248. “Thank you; be easy.”

— Alexandre Dumas

249. “Every day he spoke of the immensity of the treasure, explaining to Dantes all the good a man could do for his friends in our modern times with such a fortune. At those moments Dantes’ face would darken, for he thought of how much harm a man could do to his enemies in our modern times with such a fortune.”

— Alexandre Dumas

250. “In politics, you know, as well as I do, there are no men, but ideas – no feelings, but interests.”

— Alexandre Dumas