Top 500 Alexandre Dumas Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “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

252. “D’Artagnan had time to reflect that women – those gentle doves – treat one another more cruelly than bears and tigers.”

— Alexandre Dumas

253. “If you want to find a culprit, first you find those who might gain a benefit from committed act.”

— Alexandre Dumas

254. “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

255. “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

256. “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

257. “It was a stormy and dark night;.”

— Alexandre Dumas

258. “In every country where independence takes the place of liberty, the first need felt by any strong mind and powerful constitution is to possess a weapon which can serve both for attack and defence; and which, by making its bearer formidable, will mean that he often inspires dread.”

— Alexandre Dumas

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

— Alexandre Dumas

260. “Thank you; be easy.”

— Alexandre Dumas

261. “Through the ingenuousness of her age beamed an ardent mind, a mind not of the women but of the poet; she did not please, she intoxicated.”

— Alexandre Dumas

262. “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

263. “Incertitude is still hope.”

— Alexandre Dumas

264. “The hungry men were seen, followed by their valets, roaming the quais and guards’ quarters; gleaning from their outside friends all the dinners they could find; for, according to Aramis, in prosperity one should sow meals right and left, in order to harvest some in adversity.”

— Alexandre Dumas

265. “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

266. “Then, when they had thus passed the day in building castles in the air, they separated their flocks, and descended from the elevation of their dreams to the reality of their humble position.”

— Alexandre Dumas

267. “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

268. “Misfortune does not help us to believe.”

— Alexandre Dumas

269. “Oh, what is man!’ d’Avrigny muttered. ‘The most egoistical of all animals, the most personal of all creatures, who cannot believe otherwise than that the earth revolves, the sun shines and death reaps for him alone – an ant, cursing God from the summit of a blade of grass!”

— Alexandre Dumas

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

— Alexandre Dumas

271. “You must needs have wished to die, to know how good it is to live.”

— Alexandre Dumas

272. “There are some situations which men understand by instinct, by which reason is powerless to explain; in such cases the greatest poet is he who gives utterance to the most natural and vehement outburst of sorrow. Those who hear the bitter cry are as much impressed as if they listened to an entire poem, and when th sufferer is sincere they are right in regarding his outburst as sublime.”

— Alexandre Dumas

273. “You know very well that it will never be I who will leave you. It is not the tree that forsakes the flower, but the flower that forsakes the tree.”

— Alexandre Dumas

274. “I can assure you of one thing, – the more men you see die, the easier it becomes to die yourself; and in my opinion, death may be a torture, but it is not an expiation.”

— Alexandre Dumas

275. “There are words which close a conversation as with an iron door.”

— Alexandre Dumas

276. “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.”

— Alexandre Dumas

277. “Come, come. Enough of poison. Now that my heart is full of it, let us go and find the antidote.”

— Alexandre Dumas

278. “Besides, one requires the excitement of being hateful in the eyes of the accused, in order to lash one’s self into a state of sufficient vehemence and power. I would not choose to see the man against whom I pleaded smile, as though in mockery of my words. No; my pride is to see the accused pale, agitated, and as though beaten out of all composure by the fire of my eloquence.”

— Alexandre Dumas

279. “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.”

— Alexandre Dumas

280. “He told himself that it was the enmity of man, and not the vengeance of heaven, that had thus plunged him into the deepest misery.”

— Alexandre Dumas

281. “There’s nothing gives you so much courage as good reasons,” continued the sailor;.”

— Alexandre Dumas

282. “You live alone, then?” “I do.” “You have no sister, no son, no father?” “I have no one.” “How can you live thus, with no one to attach you to life?”

— Alexandre Dumas

283. “At least it was not I who ever encouraged you in that hope, Fernand,” replied Mercedes; “you cannot reproach me with the slightest coquetry. I have always said to you, ‘I love you as a brother; but do not ask from me more than sisterly affection, for my heart is another’s.’ Is not this true, Fernand?”

— Alexandre Dumas

284. “And yet the two young people had never declared their affection; they had grown together like two trees whose roots are mingled, whose branches intertwine and whose intermingled perfume rises to the heavens.”

— Alexandre Dumas

285. “Capricious and unfaithful, the king wished to be called Louis the Just and Louis the Chaste. Posterity will find a difficulty in understanding this character, which history explains only by facts and never by reason.”

— Alexandre Dumas

286. “Without reflecting that this is the only moment in which you can study character,” said the count; “on the steps of the scaffold death tears off the mask that has been worn through life, and the real visage is disclosed.”

— Alexandre Dumas

287. “Happiness even makes the wicked good.”

— Alexandre Dumas

288. “The belfry of St Cloud slowly emitted ten strokes from its broad sonorous jaws. There was something melancholy in that voice of bronze, which thus breathed its lamentations in the night. But each of those sounds, which told the hour he sighed for, vibrated harmoniously in the heart of the young man.”

— Alexandre Dumas

289. “I know that the world is a salon which we ought to leave politely and honestly; that is, after saluting and paying our gambling debts.”

— Alexandre Dumas

290. “Is the world filled with tigers and crocodiles?” “Yes; and remember that two-legged tigers and crocodiles are more dangerous than the others.” “Never.”

— Alexandre Dumas

291. “Besides, what is required of a young man in Paris? To speak its language tolerably, to make a good appearance, to be a good gamester, and to pay in cash.”

— Alexandre Dumas

292. “I hate the English – they are coarse, like every nation that swills beer.”

— Alexandre Dumas

293. “If I am happy in an error, do not have the cruelty to lift me from it.”

— Alexandre Dumas

294. “Dear Valentine,’ said the young man, ’you are too far above my love for me to dare speak of it to you, yet every time that I see you I need to tell you that I adore you, so that the echo of my own words will gently caress my heart when I am no longer with you.”

— Alexandre Dumas

295. “D’Artagnan ran home immediately, and although it was three o’clock in the morning and he had some of the worst quarters of Paris to traverse, he met with no misadventure. Everyone knows that drunkards and lovers have a protecting deity.”

— Alexandre Dumas

296. “His fair landlady was in despair. She would most willingly have made M. d’Artagnan her husband – such a handsome man, and such a fierce mustache!”

— Alexandre Dumas

297. “Captain or mate, M. Morrel, I shall always have the greatest respect for those who possess the owners’ confidence.”

— Alexandre Dumas

298. “Tis strange that it should be among such men that we find proofs of friendship and devotion.”

— Alexandre Dumas

299. “D’Artagnan, be it remembered, was only twenty years old, and at that age sleep has its imprescriptible rights which it imperiously insists upon, even with the saddest hearts.”

— Alexandre Dumas

300. “There are some situations which men understand by instinct, but which reason is powerless to explain.”

— Alexandre Dumas