150 Best Quotes by Alexandre Dumas: Timeless Wisdom from a Literary Master
Introduction
Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) stands as one of the most celebrated and prolific writers in literary history. Best known for his swashbuckling adventure novels The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, Dumas possessed a rare gift for weaving profound philosophical insights into thrilling narratives. His works have captivated readers for nearly two centuries, not merely for their exciting plots, but for the timeless wisdom embedded within their pages.
Born in Villers-Cotterêts, France, Dumas overcame racial prejudice and poverty to become one of the most widely read French authors in the world. His mixed-race heritage (his grandmother was an enslaved African woman) and his father's fall from Napoleon's favor shaped his unique perspective on life, justice, and human nature. This background infused his writing with deep empathy and understanding of the human condition.
What makes Dumas's quotes particularly powerful is their universal applicability. Whether writing about love, friendship, suffering, or hope, his words resonate across cultures and generations. His philosophy embraces both the darkness and light of human experience, acknowledging life's hardships while maintaining an ultimately optimistic view of human potential.
This collection of 150 quotes represents the essence of Dumas's wisdom, drawn from his novels, plays, and personal writings. Each quote offers a glimpse into the mind of a man who understood that great literature must speak not only to the imagination but to the soul.
Table of Contents
- Hope and Perseverance
- Love and Relationships
- Wisdom and Life Lessons
- Happiness and Suffering
- Friendship and Loyalty
- Courage and Character
- Success and Ambition
- Philosophy and Human Nature
Hope and Perseverance
The theme of hope runs through Dumas's work like a golden thread, perhaps most famously expressed in The Count of Monte Cristo. These quotes remind us that even in our darkest moments, hope remains our most powerful ally.
"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. Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget, that until the day God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words, 'Wait and Hope.'" - Alexandre Dumas
"Darling, has not the count just told us that all human wisdom is summed up in two words? Wait and hope." - Alexandre Dumas
"...until the day when God deigns to unveil the future to mankind, all human wisdom is contained in these two words: 'wait' and 'hope'!" - Alexandre Dumas
"There is neither happiness nor unhappiness in this world; there is only the comparison of one state with another. Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss. It is necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.....the sum of all human wisdom will be contained in these two words: Wait and Hope." - Alexandre Dumas
"Women are never so strong as after their defeat." - Alexandre Dumas
"Unfortunates, who ought to begin with God, do not have any hope in him till they have exhausted all other means of deliverance." - Alexandre Dumas
"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." - Alexandre Dumas
"All for one, one for all, that is our motto." - Alexandre Dumas
"The difference between treason and patriotism is only a matter of dates." - Alexandre Dumas
"In every country where independence has taken the place of liberty, the first desire of a manly heart is to possess a weapon which at once renders him capable of defence or attack." - Alexandre Dumas
"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." - Alexandre Dumas
"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.'" - Alexandre Dumas
"It is necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live." - Alexandre Dumas
"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." - Alexandre Dumas
"Philosophy cannot be taught; it is the application of the sciences to truth." - Alexandre Dumas
"The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time." - Alexandre Dumas
"When we are young, we lay up for old age; when we are old, we save for death." - Alexandre Dumas
"God is merciful to all, as he has been to you; he is first a father, then a judge." - Alexandre Dumas
Love and Relationships
Dumas understood love in all its complexity—passionate, painful, transformative. His insights into romantic relationships reveal both the ecstasy and agony of the human heart.
"Woman is sacred; the woman one loves is holy." - Alexandre Dumas
"We must never expect discretion in first love: it is accompanied by such excessive joy that unless the joy is allowed to overflow, it will choke you." - Alexandre Dumas
"True love always makes a man better, no matter what woman inspires it." - Alexandre Dumas
"I shall see you again, if I have to set the world on fire for that." - Alexandre Dumas
"The custom and fashion of today will be the awkwardness and outrage of tomorrow - so arbitrary are these transient laws." - Alexandre Dumas
"Love is the most selfish of all the passions." - Alexandre Dumas
"In love, writing is dangerous, not to mention pointless." - Alexandre Dumas
"Pure love and suspicion cannot dwell together: at the door where the latter enters, the former makes its exit." - Alexandre Dumas
"When love is not madness, it is not love." - Alexandre Dumas
"There are two ways of seeing: with the body and with the soul. The body's sight can sometimes forget, but the soul remembers forever." - Alexandre Dumas
"A woman's heart is an ocean of secrets." - Alexandre Dumas
"The merit of a woman is not in her beauty, but in her virtue." - Alexandre Dumas
"It is the infirmity of our nature always to believe ourselves much more unhappy than those who groan by our sides!" - Alexandre Dumas
"I have always loved truth so passionately that I have often resorted to lying as a way of introducing it into the minds which were ignorant of its charms." - Alexandre Dumas
"Be kind, aim for my heart." - Alexandre Dumas
"One's work may be finished someday, but one's education never." - Alexandre Dumas
"I prefer the wicked rather than the foolish. The wicked sometimes rest." - Alexandre Dumas
"Jealousy is the art of injuring ourselves more than others." - Alexandre Dumas
"The man of genius does not steal, he conquers." - Alexandre Dumas
Wisdom and Life Lessons
Throughout his works, Dumas dispensed wisdom gained from a life fully lived. These quotes encapsulate his understanding of human nature and the lessons learned from observing the world.
"How is it that little children are so intelligent and men so stupid? It must be education that does it." - Alexandre Dumas
"Unfortunately in this world of ours, each person views things through a certain medium, which prevents his seeing them in the same light as others…" - Alexandre Dumas
"Instruction is good for a child; but example is worth more." - Alexandre Dumas
"I have always had more dread of a pen, a bottle of ink, and a sheet of paper than of a sword or pistol." - Alexandre Dumas
"The merit of all things lies in their difficulty." - Alexandre Dumas
"In business, sir, one has no friends, only correspondents." - Alexandre Dumas
"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." - Alexandre Dumas
"Business? It's quite simple; it's other people's money." - Alexandre Dumas
"Rogues are preferable to imbeciles because sometimes they take a rest." - Alexandre Dumas
"It is rare that one can see in a little boy the promise of a man, but one can almost always see in a little girl the threat of a woman." - Alexandre Dumas
"All generalizations are dangerous, even this one." - Alexandre Dumas
"He who doubts from what he sees will ne'er believe, do what you please." - Alexandre Dumas
"If God were suddenly condemned to live the life which He has inflicted upon men, He would kill Himself." - Alexandre Dumas
"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." - Alexandre Dumas
"For all evils there are two remedies - time and silence." - Alexandre Dumas
"It is almost as difficult to keep a first class person in a fourth class job, as it is to keep a fourth class person in a first class job." - Alexandre Dumas
"Infatuated, half through conceit, half through love of my art, I achieve the impossible working as no one else ever works." - Alexandre Dumas
"I am not proud, but I am happy; and happiness blinds, I think, more than pride." - Alexandre Dumas
Happiness and Suffering
Dumas believed that happiness and suffering were inextricably linked, that one could not truly appreciate joy without having experienced sorrow. These quotes explore this duality.
"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." - Alexandre Dumas
"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." - Alexandre Dumas
"Happiness is like those palaces in fairytales whose gates are guarded by dragons: We must fight in order to conquer it." - Alexandre Dumas
"He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness." - Alexandre Dumas
"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." - Alexandre Dumas
"I was delighted to see you again, and forgot for the moment that all happiness is fleeting." - Alexandre Dumas
"Sometimes one has suffered enough to have the right to never say: I am too happy." - Alexandre Dumas
"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." - Alexandre Dumas
"No halfway emotions can exist in a heart swollen with utmost despair." - Alexandre Dumas
"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." - Alexandre Dumas
"Pain anguish and suffering in human life are always in proportion to the strength with which a man is endowed." - Alexandre Dumas
"However good-hearted one is, you understand, one eventually stops seeing people who depress you, so in the end Old Dantes was all alone." - Alexandre Dumas
"There are some catastrophes that a poor writer's pen cannot describe and which he is obliged to leave to the imagination of his readers with a bald statement of the facts." - Alexandre Dumas
"Eh bien, quand je travaille, et je travaille nuit et jour, quand je travaille, il y a des moments où je ne me souviens plus, et quand je ne me souviens plus, je suis heureux à la manière des morts: mais cela vaut encore mieux que de souffrir." - Alexandre Dumas
"Melancholy is the happiness of being sad." - Alexandre Dumas
"There is something so awe-inspiring in great afflictions that even in the worst times the first emotion of a crowd has generally been to sympathize with the sufferer in a great catastrophe." - Alexandre Dumas
"What a fool I was, not to tear my heart out on the day when I resolved to revenge myself!" - Alexandre Dumas
"Misfortune does not help us to believe." - Alexandre Dumas
Friendship and Loyalty
The bonds of friendship, particularly as portrayed in The Three Musketeers, represent one of Dumas's most cherished themes. These quotes celebrate the power of true companionship.
"Friendship throws out deep roots in honest hearts, D'Artagnan. Believe me, it is only the evil-minded who deny friendship; they cannot understand it." - Alexandre Dumas
"There is no friendship that cares about an overheard secret." - Alexandre Dumas
"You are my son Dantés! You are the child of my captivity. My priestly office condemned me to celibacy: God sent you to me both to console the man who could not be a father and the prisoner who could not be free." - Alexandre Dumas
"Friendship is a plant of slow growth and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation." - Alexandre Dumas
"In every country where independence has taken the place of liberty, the first desire of a manly heart is to possess a weapon." - Alexandre Dumas
"The wretched and miserable should turn to their Saviour first, yet they do not hope in Him until all other hope is exhausted." - Alexandre Dumas
"Everyone knows that drunkards and lovers have a protecting deity." - Alexandre Dumas
"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." - Alexandre Dumas
"Youth is a blossom whose fruit is love; happy is he who plucks it after watching it slowly ripen." - Alexandre Dumas
"We are never quits with those who oblige us...for every service they have rendered us, we discover a hundred new ways of being useful to them." - Alexandre Dumas
"Caution is the eldest child of wisdom." - Alexandre Dumas
"To save a man's life against his will is the same as killing him." - Alexandre Dumas
"Within six months, if I am not dead, I shall have seen you again, madam--even if I have to overturn the world." - Alexandre Dumas
"It is not the tree that forsakes the flower, but the flower that forsakes the tree." - Alexandre Dumas
"Now I'd like someone to tell me there is no drama in real life!" - Alexandre Dumas
"Great is truth. Fire cannot burn it nor water drown it." - Alexandre Dumas
"Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss." - Alexandre Dumas
"Porthos: He thinks he can challenge the mighty Porthos with a sword... D'Artagnan: The mighty who? Porthos: Don't tell me you've never heard of me. D'Artagnan: The world's biggest windbag? Porthos: Little pimple... meet me behind the Luxembourg at 1 o'clock and bring a long wooden box. D'Artagnan: Bring your own... Porthos: laughs" - Alexandre Dumas
Courage and Character
Dumas's heroes exemplified courage in all its forms—physical, moral, and emotional. These quotes inspire us to face our own challenges with bravery and integrity.
"Those who are coerced by force become our enemies, those who succumb to reason become our allies." - Alexandre Dumas
"I do not cling to life sufficiently to fear death." - Alexandre Dumas
"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." - Alexandre Dumas
"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
"...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." - Alexandre Dumas
"The greater number of a man's errors come before him disguised under the specious form of necessity; then, after error has been committed in a moment of excitement, of delirium, or of fear, we see that we might have avoided and escaped it." - Alexandre Dumas
"In all times, and all countries especially in those countries which are divided within by religious faith, there are always fanatics who will be well contented to be regarded as martyrs." - Alexandre Dumas
"Hatred is blind; rage carries you away; and he who pours out vengeance runs the risk of tasting a bitter draught." - Alexandre Dumas
"Ah," said the count, "that is a most conjugal reservation; I recollect that at Rome you said something of a projected marriage. May I congratulate you?" - Alexandre Dumas
"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." - Alexandre Dumas
"Truly generous men are always ready to become sympathetic when their enemy's misfortune surpasses the limits of their hatred." - Alexandre Dumas
"One always hurries towards happiness, Monsieur Danglars, because when one has suffered much, one is at pains to believe in it." - Alexandre Dumas
"We must have done something very wicked before we were born, or else we must be going to be very happy indeed when we are dead, for God to let this life have all the tortures of expiation and all the sorrows of an ordeal." - Alexandre Dumas
"Yet man will never be perfect until he learns to create and destroy; he does know how to destroy, and that is half the battle." - Alexandre Dumas
"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." - Alexandre Dumas
"We are always in a hurry to be happy...; for when we have suffered a long time, we have great difficulty in believing in good fortune." - Alexandre Dumas
"But Valentine, why despair, why always paint the future in such sombre hues?" Maximilien asked. "Because, my friend, I judge it by the past." - Alexandre Dumas
"The hungry men were seen, followed by their valets, roaming the quais and guards' quarters; gleaning from their outside friends all the dinners they could find; for, according to Aramis, in prosperity one should sow meals right and left, in order to harvest some in adversity." - Alexandre Dumas
Success and Ambition
Dumas understood the price of ambition and the nature of true success. These quotes reflect his insights into achievement and its costs.
"Nothing succeeds like success." - Alexandre Dumas
"You are without a doubt a remarkable man,' Danglars said. 'And whatever philosophers say, it's marvellous to be rich." - Alexandre Dumas
"I began a poem in lines of one syllable. It's rather difficult, but the merit of all things lies in their difficulty. The subject matter is gallant. I'll read you the first canto; it's four hundred verses long and takes one minute." - Alexandre Dumas
"So rapid is the flight of dreams upon the wings of imagination." - Alexandre Dumas
"Dantes, rejected by all the world, frequently experienced a desire for solitude, and what solitude is at the same time more complete, more poetical, than that of a bark floating isolated on the sea during the obscurity of the night, in the silence of immensity and under the eye of Heaven? Now this solitude was peopled with this thoughts, the night lighted by his illusions, and the silence animated by his anticipations." - Alexandre Dumas
"This sometimes happened: from time to time, Dantès, driven out of solitude into the world, felt an imperative need for solitude. And what solitude is more vast and more poetic than that of a ship sailing alone on the sea, in the darkness of night and the silence of infinity, under the eye of the Lord?" - Alexandre Dumas
"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." - Alexandre Dumas
"...M. Danglars, who had listened to all this preamble with imperturbable coolness, but without understanding a word, engaged as he was, like every man burdened with thoughts of the past, in seeking the thread of his own ideas in those of the speaker." - Alexandre Dumas
"Mastery of language affords one remarkable opportunities." - Alexandre Dumas
"On what slender threads do life and fortune hang." - Alexandre Dumas
"I have been taken by Satan into the highest mountain in the earth, and when there he said he to me, 'Child of earth, what wouldst thou have to make thee adore me?' I replied, 'Listen, I wish to be Providence myself, for I feel that the most beautiful, noblest, most sublime thing in the world, is to recompense and punish.'" - Alexandre Dumas
"Fool that I am," said he, "that I did not tear out my heart the day I resolved to revenge myself." - Alexandre Dumas
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Alexandre Dumas
"The merit of all things lies in their difficulty." - Alexandre Dumas
"It is almost impossible to save a man who is determined to throw himself away." - Alexandre Dumas
"It is not the tree that forsakes the flower, but the flower that forsakes the tree." - Alexandre Dumas
"I do not often laugh, sir, as you may perceive by the air of my countenance; but nevertheless, I retain the privilege of laughing when I please." - Alexandre Dumas
"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." - Alexandre Dumas
Philosophy and Human Nature
In his final years, Dumas became increasingly philosophical, pondering the great questions of existence. These quotes reveal his deepest thoughts on life, death, and human nature.
"That is a dream also; only he has remained asleep, while you have awakened; and who knows which of you is the most fortunate?" - Alexandre Dumas
"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." - Alexandre Dumas
"There are people who are willing to suffer for years to make someone else happy for a day." - Alexandre Dumas
"Perhaps what I am about to say will appear strange to you gentlemen, socialists, progressives, humanitarians as you are, but I never worry about my neighbor, I never try to protect society which does not protect me -- indeed, I might add, which generally takes no heed of me except to do me harm -- and, since I hold them low in my esteem and remain neutral towards them, I believe that they are in no way indebted to me." - Alexandre Dumas
"I do not 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." - Alexandre Dumas
"D'Artagnan: Why is Athos sitting by himself? Aramis: He takes his drinking very seriously. Not to worry, he'll be his usual charming self by morning." - Alexandre Dumas
"So he went down, smiling sceptically and mutter the final word of human philosophy: 'Perhaps!'" - Alexandre Dumas
"Athos liked every one to exercise his own free-will. He never gave his advice before it was demanded and even then it must be demanded twice. "In general, people only ask for advice," he said "that they may not follow it or if they should follow it that they may have somebody to blame for having given it"." - 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." - Alexandre Dumas
"As a general rule...people ask for advice only in order not to follow it; or if they do follow it, in order to have someone to blame for giving it." - Alexandre Dumas
"There are misfortunes in life that no one will accept; people would rather believe in the supernatural and the impossible." - Alexandre Dumas
"Besides we are men, and after all it is our business to risk our lives." - Alexandre Dumas
"I know what happiness and what despair are, and I never make a jest of such feelings. Take it, then, but in exchange —" - Alexandre Dumas
"God is always the last resource." - Alexandre Dumas
"How did I escape? With difficulty. How did I plan this moment? With pleasure!" - Alexandre Dumas
"It was like the eve of a battle; the hearts beat, the eyes laughed, and they felft that the life they were perhaps going to lose, was after all, a good thing." - Alexandre Dumas
Conclusion
Alexandre Dumas's legacy extends far beyond his thrilling adventure stories. Through his profound understanding of human nature, he left us a treasury of wisdom that continues to inspire and guide readers more than 150 years after his death. His quotes reveal a man who experienced life's full spectrum—from poverty to wealth, from despair to joy, from rejection to acclaim—and distilled these experiences into timeless truths.
What makes Dumas's wisdom particularly enduring is its balance. He never shied away from life's harsh realities, yet he maintained an ultimately hopeful view of human potential. His famous maxim "Wait and Hope" encapsulates this philosophy perfectly—acknowledging that patience is often required, but never abandoning faith in better days ahead.
In our modern world, where instant gratification is expected and adversity is often viewed as failure, Dumas's words offer a different perspective. He reminds us that suffering and joy are intertwined, that true friendship is rare and precious, that courage comes in many forms, and that wisdom is earned through experience rather than education alone.
Whether you're facing personal challenges, seeking inspiration, or simply reflecting on life's mysteries, Alexandre Dumas's quotes provide both comfort and challenge. They remind us that we are part of an eternal human story—one of struggle and triumph, love and loss, despair and hope. In sharing his insights, Dumas fulfilled his own observation: "The friends we have lost do not repose under the ground...they are buried deep in our hearts."
Through his words, Alexandre Dumas remains our companion on life's journey, offering wisdom, encouragement, and the reminder that even in our darkest moments, we must never forget to "Wait and Hope."
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