Top 500 Alexandre Dumas Quotes (2025 Update)
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351. “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.”

— Alexandre Dumas

352. “I have only two adversaries – I will not say two conquerors, for with perseverance I subdue even them, – they are time and distance. There is a third, and the most terrible – that is my condition as a mortal being.”

— Alexandre Dumas

353. “Does the open wound in another’s breast soften the pain of the gaping wound in our own? Or does the blood which is welling from another man’s side staunch that which is pouring from our own? Does the general anguish of our fellow creatures lessen our own private and particular anguish? No, no, each suffers on his own account, each struggles with his own grief, each sheds his own tears.”

— Alexandre Dumas

354. “Milady felt a consolation in seeing nature partake of the disorder of her heart. The thunder growled in the air like the passion and anger in her thoughts. It appeared to her that the blast as it swept along disheveled her brow, as it bowed the branches of the trees and bore away their leaves. She howled as the hurricane howled; and her voice was lost in the great voice of nature, which also seemed to groan with despair.”

— Alexandre Dumas

355. “Dantes was on the way he desired to follow, and was moving towards the end he wished to achieve; his heart was in a fair way of petrifying in his bosom.”

— Alexandre Dumas

356. “Athos was delighted to find he was going to fight an Englishman. We might say that was his dream.”

— Alexandre Dumas

357. “Planchet, two hours before, had asked his master for some dinner, and he had answered him with the proverb, “He who sleeps, dines.” And Planchet dined by sleeping.”

— Alexandre Dumas

358. “I have just paid twenty-five thousand francs for a discovery for which I would willingly have paid a hundred thousand.’ ‘What have you discovered?’ Maximilien asked. ‘I have just found out how to rescue a gardener from the dormice who are eating his peaches.”

— Alexandre Dumas

359. “I think they are rising faster than they have any business, and that they would not be so black if they did not mean mischief.”

— Alexandre Dumas

360. “No violence; violence is the proof of weakness.”

— Alexandre Dumas

361. “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.”

— Alexandre Dumas

362. “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.”

— Alexandre Dumas

363. “The feet of Raoul were over the edge of the cliff, bathed in that void which is peopled by vertigo, and provokes to self-annihilation.”

— Alexandre Dumas

364. “When you want to obtain something touching a man’s self-respect, you must spare his pride even the appearance of suffering.”

— Alexandre Dumas

365. “I have been told you have extreme political views,” said Villefort, who had never been told anything of the kind but was not sorry to put forward the statement in the form of an accusation.”

— Alexandre Dumas

366. “There is known to be a particular deity for drunkards and lovers.”

— Alexandre Dumas

367. “D’Artagnan was amazed to note by what fragile and unknown threads the destinies of nations and the lives of men are suspended. He.”

— Alexandre Dumas

368. “This commissary was a man of very repulsive mien, with a pointed nose, with yellow and salient cheek bones, with eyes small but keen and penetrating, and an expression of countenance resembling at one the polecat and the fox. His head, supported by a long and flexible neck, issued from his large black robe, balancing itself with a motion very much like that of the tortoise thrusting his head out of his shell.”

— Alexandre Dumas

369. “He was the friend of the king, who honored highly, as everyone knows, the memory of his father, Henry IV.”

— Alexandre Dumas

370. “She crammed so much knowledge into her head to alleviate the weight in her heart.”

— Alexandre Dumas

371. “Be happy, noble heart. Be blessed for all the good you have done and will yet do. Let my gratitude remain hidden in the shadows like your good deeds.”

— Alexandre Dumas

372. “Hold! I must have lost it,” said the young man maliciously, pretending to search for it. “But fortunately the world is a sepulcher; the men, and consequently the women, are but shadows, and love is a sentiment to which you cry, ‘Fie! Fie!”

— Alexandre Dumas

373. “Suffering is in proportion to the strength which has been accorded to a person; in other words, the weak suffer more, where the trial is the same, than the strong. And, what are the elementary principles, we may ask, which compose human strength? Is it not – more than anything else – exercise, habit, experience?”

— Alexandre Dumas

374. “Les amis d’aujourd’hui sont les ennemis de demain.”

— Alexandre Dumas

375. “She will follow you to the end of the world, Athos, if she recognizes you.”

— Alexandre Dumas

376. “It is necessary... to yield to the storm, purchase a peace, and wait patiently for better times.”

— Alexandre Dumas

377. “Be philosophers, like me, gentlemen: come around the table and let us drink.”

— Alexandre Dumas

378. “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.”

— Alexandre Dumas

379. “And now commenced the work of devastation upon the many good things with which the table was loaded.”

— Alexandre Dumas

380. “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” –.”

— Alexandre Dumas

381. “Over a species of altar, and beneath a canopy of blue velvet, surmounted by white and red plumes, was a full-length portrait of Anne of Austria, so perfect in its resemblance that d’Artagnan uttered a cry of surprise on beholding it.”

— Alexandre Dumas

382. “The ever-new passions which consumed her gave to her life the appearance of those clouds which float in the heavens, reflecting sometimes azure, sometimes fire, sometimes the opaque blackness of the tempest, and which leave no traces upon the earth behind them but devastation and death.”

— Alexandre Dumas

383. “They would have too easy a conquest over four separate men; whilst four men united make a troop.”

— Alexandre Dumas

384. “Besides the pleasure, there is always remorse, from the indulgence of our passions; and, after all, what have you men to fear from all this; the world excuses, and notoriety ennobles you?”

— Alexandre Dumas

385. “So it was that Dantes, during the Hundred Days and after Waterloo, remained under lock and key, forgotten, if not by men, at least by God.”

— Alexandre Dumas

386. “Fortune is a courtesan; favorable yesterday, she may turn her back tomorrow.”

— Alexandre Dumas

387. “This woman only became a criminal because she touched me. I am oozing with crime. She caught it off me as one may catch typhus, or cholera, or the plague!”

— Alexandre Dumas

388. “A love as tender as that of a lover for his mistress dwells, undoubtedly, in some paternal hearts toward a son.”

— Alexandre Dumas

389. “Edmond did not lose a word, but comprehended very little of what was said.”

— Alexandre Dumas

390. “Yes; but one gets out of prison,” said Caderousse, who, with what sense was left him, listened eagerly to the conversation, “and when one gets out and one’s name is Edmond Dantes, one seeks revenge.”

— Alexandre Dumas

391. “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.”

— Alexandre Dumas

392. “The reign of Mazarin is over, but that of the financiers is begun. They have the money; your majesty will not often see much of it. To live under the paw of these hungry wolves is hard for a man who reckoned upon independence.”

— Alexandre Dumas

393. “Oh, man,” murmured d’Avrigny, “the most selfish of all animals, the most personal of all creatures, who believes the earth turns, the sun shines, and death strikes for him alone, – an ant cursing God from the top of a blade of grass!”

— Alexandre Dumas

394. “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.”

— Alexandre Dumas

395. “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

396. “But I lay aside that pride before God, who has taken me from nothing to make me what I am.”

— Alexandre Dumas

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

— Alexandre Dumas

398. “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.”

— Alexandre Dumas

399. “After about ten minutes’ silence, she suddenly said: “Is it true that you have seen much, travelled far, and suffered deeply?” “I have suffered deeply, madame,” answered Monte Cristo. “But now you are happy?” “Doubtless,” replied the Count, “since no one hears me complain.” “And has your present happiness softened your heart?” “My present happiness equals my past misery,” said the Count.”

— Alexandre Dumas

400. “My friend, she is a woman.” “No, no, you are deceived – she is a queen.”

— Alexandre Dumas