Alexander Dumas

Dumas: Nothing succeeds like success.

Dumas: Business, that easily defined; it's other people's money.

Dumas: Antiquity is the aristocracy of history.

Dumas: The chain of wedlock is so heavy that it takes two to carry it--sometimes three.

Dumas: It is rare that one can see in a little boy the promise of a man but one can always see in a little girl the threat of a woman.

Dumas: A good surgeon operates with his hand not his heart.

Dumas: Friendship consists in forgetting what one gives and remembering what one receives.

Dumas: I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.

Dumas: One's work may be finished someday but one's education never.

Dumas: It is often woman who inspires us with the great things that she prevents us from accomplishing.

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

Dumas: Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss.

Dumas: It is necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.

Dumas: All human wisdom is summed up in two words--wait and hope.

Dumas: If God were suddenly condemned to live the life which He has inflicted upon men, He would kill Himself.

Dumas: Men's minds are raised to the level of the women with whom they associate.

Dumas: True love always makes a man better, no matter what woman inspires it.

Dumas was reportedly afraid to travel to the United States for fear that he would be sold into slavery because he was one-quarter black.

Dumas' works were extremely popular in Russia even though some had been banned there.

Dumas' 1844 story, The Nutcracker, was later adapted by Russian composer Peter Tchaikovsky as a ballet.

Dumas sometimes employed ghost writers to help with his stories.

Dumas' illegitimate son, Alexander Dumas fils, was also an author who wrote the classic novel Camille.

Dumas' home, the Chateau de Monte Cristo, has been restored and is open for viewing by the public.

Dumas' stories have inspired over 200 movies.

Dumas's stories have been translated into nearly 100 languages.

On November 22, 2002, Dumas' body was exhumed from its burial place and taken to the Parthenon of Paris where it was interred alongside fellow French authors Victor Hugo and Voltaire.

Dumas built himself a lavish mansion which he named Chateau de Monte Cristo after one of his most famous novels.

Though his writing made him a substantial amount of money, Dumas was repeatedly short on funds due to lavish living.

Dumas fled France in 1851 after King Louis Phillipe was overthrown. He spent much of the next 13 years in Belgium, Russia, and Italy before returning to France for good in 1864.

Dumas' final novel, The Knights of Sainte-Hermine, was long thought lost until it was discovered and published in 2005.

Dumas had numerous liaisons with women throughout the course of his life and fathered at least three illegitimate children.

Dumas married actress Ida Farrier in 1840.

Dumas' novel, The Fencing Master, was banned in Russia by Tsar Nicholas I.

In 1829, Dumas' first play, Henry III and His Court, was published and produced.

At the age of 20, Dumas went to work in the office of the Duke of Orleans who later became King Louis Phillippe.

Dumas' father died in 1806 when he was only four years old leaving both him and his mother in difficult financial straits.

Dumas' father, a mulatto, became a general in the Napoleonic Army.