The rivers of blood are flowing beneath our feet… Ive been to hell, young man, youve only read about it.
MARQUIS DE SADEThe rivers of blood are flowing beneath our feet… Ive been to hell, young man, youve only read about it.
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 SADEEvery principle is a judgment, every judgment the outcome of experience, and experience is only acquired by the exercise of the senses . . .
MARQUIS DE SADEThe man who alters his way of thinking to suit others is a fool.
MARQUIS DE SADEAnything beyond the limits and grasp of the human mind is either illusion or futility; and because your god having to be one or the other of the two, in the first instance I should be mad to believe in him, and in the second a fool.
MARQUIS DE SADEAccording to these irrefutable principles, death is hence no more than a change of form, an imperceptible passage from one existence into another.
MARQUIS DE SADEBeauty belongs to the sphere of the simple, the ordinary, whilst ugliness is something extraordinary, and there is no question but that every ardent imagination prefers in lubricity, the extraordinary to the commonplace
MARQUIS DE SADEPregnancies are damaging to health, spoil the figure, wither the charms, and it’s the cloud of uncertainty forever hanging over these events that darkens a husband’s mood.
MARQUIS DE SADEWere he supreme, were he mighty, were he just, were he good, this God you tell me about, would it be through enigmas and buffooneries he would wish to teach me to serve and know him?
MARQUIS DE SADEWhat 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!
MARQUIS DE SADEThe 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 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 SADEVirtue can procure only an imaginary happiness; true felicity lies only in the senses, and virtue gratifies none of them.
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 SADEOne must do violence to the object of one’s desire; when it surrenders, the pleasure is greater.
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 SADE