Alexandre Dumas
I hate this life of the fashionable world, always ordered, measured, ruled, like our music-paper. What I have always wished for, desired, and coveted, is the life of an artist, free and independent, relying only on my own resources, and accountable only to myself.Collection: Hate
Besides we are men, and after all it is our business to risk our lives.Collection: Men
In love, writing is dangerous, not to mention pointless.Collection: Famous Love
Oh! The good times when we were so unhappy.Collection: Time
Your bitter memories still have time to turn into sweet ones.Collection: Sweet
Ah, lips that say one thing, while the heart thinks another.Collection: Heart
In politics, my dear fellow, you know, as well as I do, there are no men, but ideas — no feelings, but interests; in politics we do not kill a man, we only remove an obstacle, that is all.Collection: Men
Everyone knows that drunkards and lovers have a protecting diety.Collection: Lovers
A weakened mind always sees everything through a black veil. The soul makes its own horizons; your soul is dark, which is why you see such a cloudy sky.Collection: Dark
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.Collection: Recognizing
So heavy is the chain of wedlock that it needs two to carry it, and sometimes three.Collection: Funny
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.Collection: Dream
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.Collection: Dream
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.Collection: Hypocrite
Be kind. Aim for my heart.Collection: Heart
...know you not that you are my sun by day, and my star by night? By my faith! I was in deepest darkness till you appeared and illuminated all.Collection: Stars
Philosophy cannot be taught; it is the application of the sciences to truth.Collection: Philosophy
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.Collection: Opportunity
Mastery of language affords one remarkable opportunities.Collection: Opportunity
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.Collection: Rocks
Woman is sacred; the woman one loves is holy.Collection: Women
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.Collection: Happiness
I have always had more dread of a pen, a bottle of ink, and a sheet of paper than of a sword or pistol.Collection: Ink
Haste is a poor counselorCollection: Haste
Order is the key to all problems.Collection: Keys
For there are two distinct sorts of ideas: Those that proceed from the head and those that emanate from the heart.Collection: Heart
Edmond Dantes: I don't believe in God. Abbe Faria: That doesn't matter, He believes in you.Collection: Believe
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.Collection: Illumination
To learn is not to know; there are the learners and the learned. Memory makes the one, philosophy the others.Collection: Memories
I do not cling to life sufficiently to fear death.Collection: Fear
Truly generous men are always ready to become sympathetic when their enemy’s misfortune surpasses the limits of their hatred.Collection: Men
True, I have raped history, but it has produced some beautiful offspring.Collection: Beautiful
But Valentine, why despair, why always paint the future in such sombre hues?" Maximilien asked. "Because, my friend, I judge it by the past.Collection: Valentine
What I’ve loved most after you, is myself: that is, my dignity and that strength which made me superior to other men. That Strength was my life. You’ve broken it with a word, so I must die.Collection: Men
Well, father, in the shipwreck of life, for life is an eternal shipwreck of our hopes, I cast into the sea my useless encumbrance, that is all, and I remain with my own will, disposed to live perfectly alone, and, consequently, perfectly free. (Eugenie to her father)Collection: Father
Ah," said the jailer, "do not always brood over what is impossible, or you will be mad in a fortnight.Collection: Mad
The air in Provence is impregnated with the aroma of garlic, which makes it very healthful to breathe.Collection: Air
It is quite rare for God to provide a great man at the necessary moment to carry out some great deep, which is why when this unusual combination of circumstance does occur, history at once records the name of the chosen one and recommends him to the admiration of posterity.Collection: Men
Why, in truth, sir," was Monte Cristo's reply, "man is but an ugly caterpillar for him who studies him through a solar microscope; but you said, I think, that I had nothing else to do. Now, really, let me ask, sir, have you? — do you believe you have anything to do? or to speak in plain terms, do you really think that what you do deserves being called anything?Collection: Believe
that Englishman who came to challenge me three or four months ago, and whom I killed to stop him bothering meCollection: Challenges
You who weep for pleasures fled, While dragging on a life of care, All your woes will melt in air, If to god your tears are shed, You who Weap!Collection: Air
Within six months, if I am not dead, I shall have seen you again, madam--even if I have to overturn the world.Collection: Six Months
I know what happiness and what despair are, and I never make a jest of such feelings. Take it, then, but in exchange —Collection: Feelings
...does that not tell you that grief is like life and that there is always somethings unknown beyond it?Collection: Grief
To be a woman condemned to a wretched and disgraceful punishment is no impediment to beauty, but it is an insurmountable obstacle to power. Like all persons of real genius, her ladyship well knew what accorded with her nature and her means. Poverty disgusted her -subjection deprived her of two-thirds of her greatness. Her ladyship was only a queen amongst queens: the enjoyment of satisfied pride was essential to her sway. To command beings of an inferior nature, was, to her, rather a humiliation than a pleasure.Collection: Queens
......When one loves, one is only too ready to believe one's love returned.Collection: Believe
Life is very tenacious in these lawyers.Collection: Lawyer
Sometimes one has suffered enough to have the right to never say: I am too happy.Collection: Sometimes
I have no will, unless it be the will never to decide. I have been so overwhelmed by the many storms that have broken over my head, that I am become passive in the hands of the Almighty, like a sparrow in the talons of an eagle. I live, because it is not ordained for me to die.Collection: Eagles