Citations by Alexandre Dumas

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Dear girl, don't feel badly of what I am about to tell you; only think that certain times life has cruel needs and one must submit oneself.

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"Again you drive me to despair,
Maximilian," said Valentine, "again you plunge the dagger into the wound! What would you do, tell me, if your sister listened to such a proposition?"
"Mademoiselle," replied Morrel with a bitter smile, "I am selfish -- you have already said so -- and as a selfish
man I think not of what others would do in my situation, but of what I intend doing myself. I think only that I
have known you not a whole year. From the day I first saw you, all my hopes of happiness have been in securing your affection. One day you acknowledged that you loved me, and since that day my hope of future happiness has rested on obtaining you, for to gain you would be life to me. Now, I think no more; I say only that fortune has turned against me -- I had thought to gain heaven, and now I have lost it. It is an every-day occurrence for a gambler to lose not only what he possesses but also what he has not.

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"Do you remember your father, Haidee?" The young Greek smiled. "He is here, and here," said she, touching
her eyes and her heart. "And where am I?" inquired Monte Cristo laughingly. "You?" cried she, with tones of thrilling tenderness, "you are everywhere!"

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One always loves what harms one.

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Yes, but from a jail one is set free, and when from a jail one is set free but has the name of Edmondo Dantes, one revenges oneself.

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"Oh!" exclaimed the young girl, raising towards the dark heavens her beautiful large eyes filled with tears, "if you did but know what a heart is, I would explain, and convince you; a loving heart is stronger than all your coquetry, more powerful than all your pride. A woman is never truly loved, I believe; a man never loves with idolatry, unless he feels sure he is loved in return. Let old men, whom we read of in comedies, fancy themselves adored by coquettes. A young man is conscious of, and knows them; if he has a fancy, or a strong desire, and an absorbing passion, for a coquette, he cannot mistake her; a coquette may drive him out of his senses, but will never make him fall in love. Love, such as I conceive it to be, is an incessant, complete, and perfect sacrifice; but it is not the sacrifice of one only of the two persons thus united. It is the perfect abnegation of two who are desirous of blending their beings into one. If ever I love, I shall implore my lover to leave me free and pure; I will tell him, and he will understand, that my heart was torn by my refusal, and he, in his love for me, aware of the magnitude of my sacrifice.

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A woman's eye can read the face of the man she loves, its every feeling of pride, its every expression of suffering; it might almost be said that Heaven has graciously granted to women, on account of their very weakness, more than it has accorded to other creatures. They can conceal their own feelings from a man, but from them no man can conceal his.

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I don't know anyone that is like d'Artagnan!

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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.

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"Is there a man in the world who, being able to ask, doesn't do so?"
"There is Count De La Fère, madam; Count De La Fère is not a man"
"And what is he?"
"Count De La Fère is a demigod."