Alfred Dreyfus > Quotes

“. . . to educate children is not merely to provide for their material, or even their intellectual life, but to assure them of the sympathy of their parents, to inspire them with confidence and the certainty that there is always one place where they can unburden their hearts and forget their pains and sorrows, trivial though these may ofttimes appear to us.”
― Alfred Dreyfus, Five Years of My Life, 1894-1899

“. . . for whatever the will and energy of a man may be, human strength has a limit, and this limit had been reached.”
― Alfred Dreyfus, Five Years of My Life: The Diary of Captain Alfred Dreyfus (Select Bibliographies Reprint)

“My little Pierre is now nearly five years old. He is quite a big boy. I used to wait with impatience for the time when I could take him with me and talk with him, opening his young mind, instilling into him the love of beauty and truth, and helping fashion for him so lofty a soul that the ugliness of life could not degrade it.”
― Alfred Dreyfus, Five Years of My Life: The Diary of Captain Alfred Dreyfus (Select Bibliographies Reprint)

“In times of happiness we do not begin to perceive the strength of the mighty tenderness which the deep recesses of the heart hold for those we love. We need misfortune and the sense of suffering endured by those for whom we would give our last drop of blood, to learn the power of it.”
― Alfred Dreyfus, Five Years of My Life, 1894-1899

“During these first days, when, in the disarray of mind and senses which was the consequence of the iniquitous sentence passed on me, I had resolved to kill myself, my dear wife, with her undaunted devotion and courage, made me realize that it is because I am innocent that I have not the right to abandon her or wilfully to desert my post.”
― Alfred Dreyfus, Five Years of My Life: The Diary of Captain Alfred Dreyfus (Select Bibliographies Reprint)

“How heavy must the responsibility weigh on those others who, in torturing an individual, are also abusing the confidence of an entire nation!”
― Alfred Dreyfus, Five Years of My Life: The Diary of Captain Alfred Dreyfus (Select Bibliographies Reprint)

“I shall struggle against the decline of body and brain and heart so long as a shadow of force is left me, so long as they leave me a spark of life. I must see the end of this dark tragedy.”
― Alfred Dreyfus, Five Years of My Life: The Diary of Captain Alfred Dreyfus (Select Bibliographies Reprint)

“Ah, human nature with its passions and hatreds, with its moral hideousness!
Ah, men, to whom, compared with their selfish interests, all else matters little!
Justice is a good thing - when there is plenty of time and nobody is inconvenienced!”
― Alfred Dreyfus, Five Years of My Life: The Diary of Captain Alfred Dreyfus (Select Bibliographies Reprint)