Top 500 Alexandre Dumas Quotes (2026 Update)
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351. “The heart of the best woman is pitiless toward the sorrows of a rival.”

— Alexandre Dumas

352. “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

353. “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

354. “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

355. “However anxious one is to reach one’s goal, one can excuse delays on the route when these are caused by ovations.”

— Alexandre Dumas

356. “I never swear, Monseigneur. I say Yes or No, and as I am a gentleman, I keep my word.”

— Alexandre Dumas

357. “The marquise heard her sentence without showing any sign of fear or weakness. When it was finished, she said to the registrar, “Will you, sir, be so kind as to read it again? I had not expected the tumbril, and I was so much struck by that that I lost the thread of what followed.”

— Alexandre Dumas

358. “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

359. “But, it is well known, what strikes the capricious mind of the poet is not always what affects the mass of readers.”

— Alexandre Dumas

360. “Delays only double grief when one has to part...”

— Alexandre Dumas

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

— Alexandre Dumas

362. “The prisoner followed his guide, who led him into a room almost under ground, whose bare and reeking walls seemed as though impregnated with tears.”

— Alexandre Dumas

363. “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

364. “They walked arm in arm, occupying the whole width of the street and taking in every Musketeer they met, so that in the end it became a triumphal march. The heart of D’Artagnan swam in delirium; he marched between Athos and Porthos, pressing them tenderly.”

— Alexandre Dumas

365. “There is only one serious matter to be considered in life, and that is death.”

— Alexandre Dumas

366. “Women of a certain grade are like prosperous grisettes in one respect, they seldom return home after twelve o’clock.”

— Alexandre Dumas

367. “God speaks to your heart and your heart speaks to you. Tell me what it says.”

— Alexandre Dumas

368. “Armed to the teeth?” “He had not even a knitting-needle.”

— Alexandre Dumas

369. “All four once more together.”

— Alexandre Dumas

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

— Alexandre Dumas

371. “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

372. “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

373. “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

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

— Alexandre Dumas

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

— Alexandre Dumas

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

— Alexandre Dumas

377. “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

378. “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

379. “There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another.”

— Alexandre Dumas

380. “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

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

— Alexandre Dumas

382. “We will escape, and if we cannot escape we will talk, you of those you love and I of those whom I love.”

— Alexandre Dumas

383. “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

384. “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

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

— Alexandre Dumas

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

— Alexandre Dumas

387. “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

388. “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

389. “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

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

— Alexandre Dumas

392. “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

393. “It was one of those events which decide the life of a man;.”

— Alexandre Dumas

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

— Alexandre Dumas

395. “The pretty landlady was desolate. She would have taken D’Artagnan not only as her husband, but as her God, he was so handsome and had so fierce a mustache. Then.”

— Alexandre Dumas

396. “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

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

— Alexandre Dumas

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

— Alexandre Dumas

399. “God has preserved us hitherto, God will preserve us still.”

— Alexandre Dumas

400. “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