The most extraordinary, the most bizarre acts, those which most arrantly seem to conflict with every law, every human institution.
MARQUIS DE SADEThe most extraordinary, the most bizarre acts, those which most arrantly seem to conflict with every law, every human institution.
MARQUIS DE SADENever may an act of possession be exercised upon a free being; the exclusive possession of a woman is no less unjust than the possession of slaves.
MARQUIS DE SADEIt has, moreover, been proven that horror, nastiness, and the frightful are what give pleasure when one fornicates.
MARQUIS DE SADEVirtue can procure only an imaginary happiness; true felicity lies only in the senses, and virtue gratifies none of them.
MARQUIS DE SADEOh, Satan! one and unique God of my soul, inspire thou in me something yet more, present further perversions to my smoking heart, and then shalt thou see how I shall plunge myself into them all!
MARQUIS DE SADEIf Nature denies eternity to beings, it follows that their destruction is one of her laws.
MARQUIS DE SADEBeauty 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 SADELet not your zeal to share your principles entice you beyond your borders.
MARQUIS DE SADEAnd if I were a naughty little boy, the idea is to spank me into good behavior?
MARQUIS DE SADEMy 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 SADEIn libertinage, nothing is frightful, because everything libertinage suggests is also a natural inspiration.
MARQUIS DE SADEDon’t have children: they deform women’s bodies and turn into an enemy 20 years later.
MARQUIS DE SADEThe reasoning man who scorns the prejudices of simpletons necessarily becomes the enemy of simpletons; he must expect as much, and laugh at the inevitable.
MARQUIS DE SADEHow delightful are the pleasures of the imagination! In those delectable moments, the whole world is ours; not a single creature resists us.
MARQUIS DE SADEBehold, my love, behold all that I simultaneously do: scandal, seduction, bad example, incest, adultery, sodomy!
MARQUIS DE SADEOne must feel sorry for those who have strange tastes, but never insult them. Their wrong is Nature’s too; they are no more responsible for having come into the world with tendencies unlike ours than are we for being born bandy-legged or well-proportioned.
MARQUIS DE SADE