Happiness is an abstraction, it is a product of the imagination, it is a way of being moved, which depends entirely on our way of seeing and feeling.
MARQUIS DE SADEHappiness is an abstraction, it is a product of the imagination, it is a way of being moved, which depends entirely on our way of seeing and feeling.
MARQUIS DE SADEMurder is a horror, but an often necessary horror, never criminal, which it is essential to tolerate in a republican State. Is it or is it not a crime?
MARQUIS DE SADEImperious, choleric, irascible, extreme in everything, with a dissolute imagination the like of which has never been seen, atheistic to the point of fanaticism, there you have me in a nutshell, and kill me again or take me as I am, for I shall not change.
MARQUIS DE SADEThe most fortunate of persons is he who has the most means to satisfy his vagaries.
MARQUIS DE SADESo much nearer to Nature than civilized men are; absurd then to maintain cruelty is a consequence of depravity. . . .
MARQUIS DE SADEEven those that are not frightful, and there is not one amongst them all that cannot be demonstrated within the boundaries of nature.
MARQUIS DE SADEOne must do violence to the object of one’s desire; when it surrenders, the pleasure is greater.
MARQUIS DE SADEIn order to know virtue, we must first acquaint ourselves with vice.
MARQUIS DE SADENothing 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 SADEHappiness lies neither in vice nor in virtue; but in the manner we appreciate the one and the other, and the choice we make pursuant to our individual organization.
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 SADEAnd if I were a naughty little boy, the idea is to spank me into good behavior?
MARQUIS DE SADEThe completest submissiveness is your lot, and that is all.
MARQUIS DE SADEFor 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 SADEI have supported my deviations with reasons; I did not stop at mere doubt; I have vanquished, I have uprooted,
MARQUIS DE SADEHappiness is ideal, it is the work of the imagination.
MARQUIS DE SADE