Either kill me or take me as I am, because I’ll be damned if I ever change.
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.
More Marquis de Sade Quotes
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Cruelty, very far from being a vice, is the first sentiment Nature injects in us all.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
Oh, 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 SADE -
The 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 SADE -
In an age that is utterly corrupt, the best policy is to do as others do.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
The horror of wedlock, the most appalling, the most loathsome of all the bonds humankind has devised for its own discomfort and degradation.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
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.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
Miserable creatures, thrown for a moment on the surface of this little pile of mud, is it decreed that one half of the flock should be the persecutor of the other? Is it for you, mankind, to pronounce on what is good and what is evil?
MARQUIS DE SADE -
Deep down he enjoys having gone so far as to deserve being treated in such a way.
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 -
The more defects a man may have, the older he is, the less lovable, the more resounding his success.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
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 -
Virtue can procure only an imaginary happiness; true felicity lies only in the senses, and virtue gratifies none of them.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
The most fortunate of persons is he who has the most means to satisfy his vagaries.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
So much nearer to Nature than civilized men are; absurd then to maintain cruelty is a consequence of depravity. . . .
MARQUIS DE SADE -
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.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
Fear not lest precautions and protective contrivances diminish your pleasure: mystery only adds thereto.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
Those laws, being forged for universal application, are in perpetual conflict with personal interest, just as personal interest is always in contradiction with the general interest.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
For the simple reason that the first will always put the law into the service of the second.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
Never 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.
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Are not laws dangerous which inhibit the passions? Compare the centuries of anarchy with those of the strongest legalism in any country you like and you will see that it is only when the laws are silent that the greatest actions appear.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
Return to the nothingness from which the mad hope and ridiculous fright of men dared call you forth to their misfortune. You only appeared as a torment for the human race.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
Are your convictions so fragile that mine cannot stand in opposition to them? Is your God so illusory that the presence of my Devil reveals his insufficiency?
MARQUIS DE SADE -
Nothing we can do outrages Nature directly. Our acts of destruction give her new vigour and feed her energy, but none of our wreckings can weaken her power.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
I want to be the victim of his errors.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
In order to know virtue, we must first acquaint ourselves with vice.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
Conspiracy! Intrigue! A rapidly thickening plot! Add some bestiality and a lecherous priest and I’d say you have the beginnings of a beautiful novel.
MARQUIS DE SADE