Never lose sight of the fact that all human felicity lies in man’s imagination, and that he cannot think to attain it unless he heeds all his caprices.
MARQUIS DE SADENever lose sight of the fact that all human felicity lies in man’s imagination, and that he cannot think to attain it unless he heeds all his caprices.
MARQUIS DE SADEI 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.
MARQUIS DE SADEIn an age that is utterly corrupt, the best policy is to do as others do.
MARQUIS DE SADECan we become other than what we are?
MARQUIS DE SADEIf the objects who serve us feel ecstacy, they are much more often concerned with themselves than with us, and our own enjoyment is consequently impaired.
MARQUIS DE SADEConversation, like certain portions of the anatomy, always runs more smoothly when lubricated.
MARQUIS DE SADEWolves which batten upon lambs, lambs consumed by wolves, the strong who immolate the weak, the weak victims of the strong.
MARQUIS DE SADEAnd if I were a naughty little boy, the idea is to spank me into good behavior?
MARQUIS DE SADEFear not lest precautions and protective contrivances diminish your pleasure: mystery only adds thereto.
MARQUIS DE SADESo 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.
MARQUIS DE SADEThere is no more lively sensation than that of pain; its impressions are certain and dependable, they never deceive as may those of the pleasure women perpetually feign and almost never experience.
MARQUIS DE SADEI have destroyed everything in my heart that might have interfered with my pleasure.
MARQUIS DE SADEHere am I: at one stroke incestuous, adulteress, sodomite, and all that in a girl who only lost her maidenhead today! What progress, my friends with what rapidity I advance along the thorny road of vice!
MARQUIS DE SADEThe primary and most beautiful of nature’s qualities is motion
MARQUIS DE SADEChimerical and empty being, your name alone has caused more blood to flow on the face of the earth than any political war ever will.
MARQUIS DE SADEDread not infanticide; the crime is imaginary: we are always mistress of what we carry in our womb, and we do no more harm in destroying this kind of matter than in evacuating another, by medicines, when we feel the need.
MARQUIS DE SADE