Happiness lies only in that which excites, and the only thing that excites is crime.
MARQUIS DE SADEGet it into your head once and for all, my simple and very fainthearted fellow, that what fools call humanness is nothing but a weakness born of fear and egoism; that this chimerical virtue, enslaving only weak men, is unknown to those whose character is formed by stoicism, courage, and philosophy.
More Marquis de Sade Quotes
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Happiness lies neither in vice nor in virtue; but in the manner we appreciate the one and the other, and the choice we make pursuant to our individual organization.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
For my system, which you disapprove of is also my greatest comfort in life, the source of all my happiness -it means more to me than my life itself.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
There you have Nature, there you have her intentions, there you have her scheme: a perpetual action and reaction, a host of vices, a host of virtues, in one word, a perfect equilibrium resulting from the equality of good and evil on earth.
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I’ve already told you: the only way to a woman’s heart is along the path of torment. I know none other as sure.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
It is not my mode of thought that has caused my misfortunes, but the mode of thought of others.
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Get it into your head once and for all, my simple and very fainthearted fellow, that what fools call humanness is nothing but a weakness born of fear and egoism; that this chimerical virtue, enslaving only weak men, is unknown to those whose character is formed by stoicism, courage, and philosophy.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
Lust is to the other passions what the nervous fluid is to life; it supports them all, lends strength to them all ambition, cruelty, avarice, revenge, are all founded on lust.
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To judge from the notions expounded by theologians, one must conclude that God created most men simply with a view to crowding hell.
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The imagination is the spur of delights… all depends upon it, it is the mainspring of everything; now, is it not by means of the imagination one knows joy? Is it not of the imagination that the sharpest pleasures arise?
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Thread of their days without pity, and in the midst of life, without ever concerning themselves with this fatal moment, living as though they were to exist for ever, they disappear into the obscure cloud of immortality, uncertain of the fate which lies in store for them.
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Every principle is a judgment, every judgment the outcome of experience, and experience is only acquired by the exercise of the senses . . .
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What do I see there but a frail being forever unable to bring man to heel and force him to bend a knee. This creature, although emanated from him, dominates him, knows how to offend him and thereby merit torments eternally! What a weak fellow, this God!
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Why do you complain of your fate when you could so easily change it?
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Fear not lest precautions and protective contrivances diminish your pleasure: mystery only adds thereto.
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The infant breaks his toy, bites his nurse’s breast, strangles his canary long before he is able to reason; cruelty is stamped in animals, in whom, as I think I have said, Nature’s laws are more emphatically to be read than in ourselves; cruelty exists amongst savages.
MARQUIS DE SADE