Virtue can procure only an imaginary happiness; true felicity lies only in the senses, and virtue gratifies none of them.
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?
More Marquis de Sade Quotes
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Social order at the expense of liberty is hardly a bargain.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
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 -
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 -
I’ve been to Hell. You’ve only read about it.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
Let us give ourselves indiscriminately to everything our passions suggest, and we will always be happy…
MARQUIS DE SADE -
Religions are the cradles of despotism.
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 -
So much nearer to Nature than civilized men are; absurd then to maintain cruelty is a consequence of depravity. . . .
MARQUIS DE SADE -
It is not the opinions or the vices of private individuals that are harmful to the State, but rather the behavior of public figures.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
Thread of their days without pity, and in the midst of life, without ever concerning themselves with this fatal moment, living as though they were to exist for ever, they disappear into the obscure cloud of immortality, uncertain of the fate which lies in store for them.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
Behold, my love, behold all that I simultaneously do: scandal, seduction, bad example, incest, adultery, sodomy!
MARQUIS DE SADE -
If it is not, why make laws for its punishment? And if it is, by what barbarous logic do you, to punish it, duplicate it by another crime?
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We monsters are necessary to nature also.
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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







