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.

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.

Fool that I am," said he,"that I did not tear out my heart the day I resolved to revenge myself.

The soul forms its own horizons; your soul is darkened, and consequently the sky of the future appears stormy and unpromising.

How odd and inexplicable are the paths of destiny. What intention did Providence have by ruining the one who it has raised up, and raising up the one who it has ruined?

On what slender threads do life and fortune hang.

God is merciful to all, as he has been to you; he is first a father, then a judge.

I prefer the wicked rather than the foolish. The wicked sometimes rest.

Love is the most selfish of all the passions.

Great is truth. Fire cannot burn it nor water drown it.

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.

He who dies gains; he who sees others die loses.

That which is actually good never alters.

There are misfortunes in life that no one will accept; people would rather believe in the supernatural and the impossible.

Happiness is like one of those palaces on an enchanted island, its gates guarded by dragons. One must fight to gain it.

Misfortune is needed to plumb certain mysterious depths in the understanding of men; pressure is needed to explode the charge. My captivity concentrated all my faculties on a single point. They had previously been dispersed, now they clashed in a narrow space; and, as you know, the clash of clouds produces electricity, electricity produces lightning and lightning gives light.

How is it that little children are so intelligent and men so stupid? It must be education that does it.

Philosophy cannot be taught; it is the application of the sciences to truth.

I have always had more dread of a pen, a bottle of ink, and a sheet of paper than of a sword or pistol.