The debility to which Nature condemned women incontestably proves that her design is for man, who then more than ever enjoys his strength, to exercise it in all the violent forms that suit him best, by means of tortures, if he be so inclined, or worse.
MARQUIS DE SADEConspiracy! Intrigue! A rapidly thickening plot! Add some bestiality and a lecherous priest and I’d say you have the beginnings of a beautiful novel.
More Marquis de Sade Quotes
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Beauty is a simple thing; ugliness is the exceptional thing. And fiery imaginations, no doubt, always prefer the extraordinary thing to the simple thing.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
God strung up his own son like a side of veal. I shudder to think what he would do to me.
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No kind of sensation is keener and more active than that of pain its impressions are unmistakable.
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When I was not the cause of some chaos, a chaos of such proportions that it would provoke a general corruption or a distubance so formal that even after my death its effects would still be felt.
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So long as the laws remain such as they are today, employ some discretion: loud opinion forces us to do so; but in privacy and silence let us compensate ourselves for that cruel chastity we are obliged to display in public.
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The mirror sees the man as beautiful, the mirror loves the man; another mirror sees the man as frightful and hates him; and it is always the same being who produces the impressions.
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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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I think that if there were a God, there would be less evil on this earth. I believe that if evil exists here below, then either it was willed by God or it was beyond His powers to prevent it.
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So much nearer to Nature than civilized men are; absurd then to maintain cruelty is a consequence of depravity. . . .
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If it is the dirty element that gives pleasure to the act of lust, then the dirtier it is, the more pleasurable it is bound to be.
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Now I cannot bring myself to fear a God who is either spiteful or weak. I defy Him without fear and care not a fig for his thunderbolts.
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Social order at the expense of liberty is hardly a bargain.
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How delightful are the pleasures of the imagination! In those delectable moments, the whole world is ours; not a single creature resists us.
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What I should like to find is a crime the effects of which would be perpetual, even when I myself do not act, so that there would not be a single moment of my life even when I were asleep.
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My manner of thinking stems straight from my considered reflections; it holds with my existence, with the way I am made. It is not in my power to alter it; and were it, I’d not do so.
MARQUIS DE SADE