Alexandre Dumas

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Alexandre Dumas, père, French author

Alexandre Dumas, père (July 24, 1802 – December 5, 1870) is best known for his numerous historical novels of high adventure which have made him the most widely read French author in the world.

1 Sourced
2 Attributed
3 External Links

[edit] Sourced

Rien ne réussit comme le succès.
- Translation: Nothing succeeds like success.
- Ange Pitou, Vol. 1 (1854)

Sleeping on a plank has one advantage - it encourages early rising.
- Adventures in Czarist Russia

[edit] Le comte de Monte Cristo (The Count of Monte Cristo) (1845-1846)

"We are never quits with those who oblige us," was Dantes' reply; "for when we do not owe them money, we owe them gratitude.

Drunk, if you like; so much the worse for those who fear wine, for it is because they have bad thoughts which they are afraid the liquor will extract from their hearts.

Private misfortunes must never induce us to neglect public affairs.--M. Morrel

"There is...a clever maxim which bears upon what I was saying to you some little while ago, and that is, that unless wicked ideas take root in a naturally depraved mind, human nature, in a right and wholesome state, revolts at crime. Still, from an artificial civilisation have originated wants, vices, and false tastes, which occasionally become so powerful as to stifle within us all good feelings, and ultimately to lead us into guilt and wickedness..."

"How strange," continued the king, with some asperity; "the police think that they have disposed of the whole matter when they say, `A murder has been committed,' and especially so when they can add, `And we are on the track of the guilty persons.'"

[T]o learn is not to know; there are the learners and the learned. Memory makes the one, philosophy the other.

"Tell the angel who will watch over your future destiny, Morrel, to pray sometimes for a man who, like Satan, thought himself, for an instant, equal to God; but who now acknowledges, with Christian humility, that God alone possesses supreme power and infinite wisdom...There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life."

Until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words,-"Wait and hope".

There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more

And now, farewell to kindness, humanity and gratitude… I have substituted myself for Providence in rewarding the good; may the God of vengeance now yield me His place to punish the wicked.

[edit] Les Trois Mousquetaires (The Three Musketeers) (1844)

Tous pour un, un pour tous, c'est notre devise
- Translation: All for one, one for all, that is our motto.
- Ch. 9: D'Artagnan Shows Himself [1]

"Eh, gentlemen, let us reckon upon accidents! Life is a chaplet of little miseries which the philosopher counts with a smile. Be philosophers, as I am, gentlemen; sit down at the table and let us drink. Nothing makes the future look so bright as surveying it through a glass of chambertin."
- Athos, Ch. 48: A Family Affair

"Weep," said Athos, "weep, heart full of love, youth, and life! Alas, would I could weep like you!"
- Ch. 63: The Drop of Water

[edit] Vingt ans après (Twenty Years After) (1845)

[L]earn ever to separate the king and the principle of royalty. The king is but man; royalty is the spirit of God. When you are in doubt as to which you should serve, forsake the material appearance for the invisible principle, for this is everything.

[edit] Le Vicomte de Bragelonne ou Dix ans plus (The Vicomte de Bragelonne) (1847)

Eh! sire, that is the fate of truth; she is a stern companion; she bristles all over with steel; she wounds those whom she attacks, and sometimes him who speaks her.

My friend, the pleasures to which we are not accustomed oppress us more than the griefs with which we are familiar.

[edit] Les Mohicans de Paris (The Mohicans of Paris) (1854)

Il y a une femme dans toutes les affaires; aussitôt qu'on me fait un rapport, je dis: 'Cherchez la femme'.
- Translation: There is a woman in every case; as soon as they bring me a report, I say, 'Look for the woman'.
- II.iii, translation from The Penguin Dictionary of Quotations.
- See wikipedia cherchez la femme on how this phrase has come to be used.
- Compare Juvenal satire VI.243 (circa 100 AD), "never yet was there a lawsuit which did not have a woman at the bottom of it" (translation by G. G. Ramsay), but in that case describing the litigiousness of Roman women.

[edit] Attributed

Les chaînes du mariage sont si lourdes qu'il faut être deux pour les porter; quelquefois trois.
- Translation: The chains of wedlock are so heavy that it takes two to carry them; sometimes three.