Dumas Devy de la Pailleterie, popularly known as Alexandre Dumas, was a French author who lived in the 19th century and is credited for writing some of the most wildly popular stories in French, that went on to become bestsellers all over the world. Dumas was born in an aristocratic family in France and that helped him finding his feet as an author from a young age. Initially, he was a writer of plays but it was as a novelist he found true fame and some of his most famous works include ‘The Three Musketeers’, ‘The Victome de Bragelonne: Ten Years Later’, ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ and ‘Twenty Years After’. The novels proved to be huge successes and have been read by people from all across the world. In addition to that, the novels have also been made into films hundreds of times by film producers in different parts of the world. Dumas was also a regular contributor in several magazines of the time and was a noted travel writer as well. Needless to say, Dumas was a man of great intellect and wit, which is why it is not a surprise that he has left behind a rich collection of quotes. Here are some of the selected ones.
Moral wounds have this peculiarity - they may be hidden, but they never close; always painful, always ready to bleed when touched, they remain fresh and open in the heart.
Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes.
Learning does not make one learned: there are those who have knowledge and those who have understanding. The first requires memory and the second philosophy
For the happy man prayer is only a jumble of words, until the day when sorrow comes to explain to him the sublime language by means of which he speaks to God.
...The friends we have lost do not repose under the ground...they are buried deep in our hearts. It has been thus ordained that they may always accompany us...
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.
It is the way of weakened minds to see everything through a black cloud. The soul forms its own horizons; your soul is darkened, and consequently the sky of the future appears stormy and unpromising
I don’t think man was meant to attain happiness so easily. Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it.
So much the worse for those who fear wine, for it is because they have some bad thoughts which they are afraid the liquor will extract from their hearts.
Be happy, noble heart, be blessed for all the good thou hast done and wilt do hereafter, and let my gratitude remain in obscurity like your good deeds.
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.
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.
A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself. He makes his failures certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.
And now gentlemen, all for one, one for all - that is our motto, is it not?
Alexandre Dumas
There is no friendship that cares about an overheard secret.
Alexandre Dumas
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.
Youth is a blossom whose fruit is love; happy is he who plucks it after watching it slowly ripen.
Alexandre Dumas
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.
Your life story is a novel; and people, though they love novels wound between two yellow paper covers, are oddly suspicious of those which come to them in living vellum.
I love the life you've always made so sweet for me and I'd regret it if I had to die.'
'Do you mean to say that if I left you---'
'I'd die, yes.'
'Then you love me?
No, I slept as I always do when I am bored and have not the courage to amuse myself, or when I am hungry and have not the desire to eat.--The Count of Monte Cristo
