My passions, concentrated on a single point, resemble the rays of a sun assembled by a magnifying glass: they immediately set fire to whatever object they find in their way.
MARQUIS DE SADEHence, I must recommend to you prompt exactness, submissiveness, and total self-abnegation that you be enabled to heed naught but our desires; let them be your laws, fly to do their bidding, anticipate them, cause them to be born.
More Marquis de Sade Quotes
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Every principle is a judgment, every judgment the outcome of experience, and experience is only acquired by the exercise of the senses . . .
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 -
A poor fool indeed is he who adopts a manner of thinking to suit other people!
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 -
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 -
It is only by enlarging the scope of one’s tastes and one’s fantasies, by sacrificing everything to pleasure, that the unfortunate individual called Man, thrown despite himself into this sad world, can succeed in gathering a few roses among life’s thorns
MARQUIS DE SADE -
The most extraordinary, the most bizarre acts, those which most arrantly seem to conflict with every law, every human institution.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
The idea of seeing another person experience the same pleasure reduces one to a kind of equality which spoils the unutterable charms that come from despotism.
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 -
One must do violence to the object of one’s desire; when it surrenders, the pleasure is greater.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
And if I were a naughty little boy, the idea is to spank me into good behavior?
MARQUIS DE SADE -
I’ve already told you: the only way to a woman’s heart is along the path of torment. I know none other as sure.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
Conversation, like certain portions of the anatomy, always runs more smoothly when lubricated.
MARQUIS DE SADE -
Were 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 SADE -
In an age that is utterly corrupt, the best policy is to do as others do.
MARQUIS DE SADE






