Marquis De Sade Quotes

One is never so dangerous when one has no shame, than when one has grown too old to blush.

Happiness is ideal, it is the work of the imagination.

No lover, if he be of good faith, and sincere, will deny he would prefer to see his mistress dead than unfaithful.

'Til the infallibility of human judgements shall have been proved to me, I shall demand the abolition of the penalty of death.

The majority of pop stars are complete idiots in every respect.

Let not your zeal to share your principles entice you beyond your borders.

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.

Nature has not got two voices, you know, one of them condemning all day what the other commands.

There is a kind of pleasure which comes from sacrilege or the profanation of the objects offered us for worship.

Prejudice is the sole author of infamies: how many acts are so qualified by an opinion forged out of naught but prejudice!

It requires only two things to win credit for a miracle: a mountebank and a number of silly women.

Variety, multiplicity are the two most powerful vehicles of lust.

The law which attempts a man's life [capital punishment] is impractical, unjust, inadmissible. It has never repressed crime - for a second crime is every day committed at the foot of the scaffold.

They declaim against the passions without bothering to think that it is from their flame philosophy lights its torch.

What is more immoral than war?

Is it not of the imagination that the sharpest pleasures arise?

The ultimate triumph of philosophy would be to cast light upon the mysterious ways in which Providence moves to achieve the designs it has for man.

The horror of wedlock, the most appalling, the most loathsome of all the bonds humankind has devised for its own discomfort and degradation.

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.

The most fortunate of persons is he who has the most means to satisfy his vagaries.

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?

It is not my mode of thought that has caused my misfortunes, but the mode of thought of others.

One weeps not save when one is afraid, and that is why kings are tyrants.

Every principle is a judgment, every judgment the outcome of experience, and experience is only acquired by the exercise of the senses . . .

Is it not a strange blindness on our part to teach publicly the techniques of warfare and to reward with medals those who prove to be the most adroit killers?

It is certainly no crime to depict the bizarre ideas that nature inspires.

Are wars anything but the means whereby a nation is nourished, whereby it is strengthened, whereby it is buttressed?

I don't know what the heart is, not I: I only use the word to denote the mind's frailties.

Cruelty, very far from being a vice, is the first sentiment Nature injects in us all.

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.

The primary and most beautiful of Nature's qualities is motion, which agitates her at all times, but this motion is simply a perpetual consequence of crimes, she conserves it by means of crimes only.

Fear not lest precautions and protective contrivances diminish your pleasure: mystery only adds thereto.

Humane sentiments are baseless, mad, and improper; they are incredibly feeble; never do they withstand the gainsaying passions, never do they resist bare necessity.

I want to be the victim of his errors.

Happiness lies only in that which excites, and the only thing that excites is crime.

Crime is to the passions what nervous fluid is to life: it sustains them, it supplies their strength.

Certain souls may seem harsh to others, but it is just a way, beknownst only to them, of caring and feeling more deeply.

The impossibility of outraging nature is the greatest anguish man can know.

You are afraid of the people unrestrained-how ridiculous!

It is not the opinions or the vices of private individuals that are harmful to the State, but rather the behavior of public figures.

Truth titillates the imagination far less than fiction.

Any enjoyment is weakened when shared.

Oh! my friend, never seek to corrupt the person whom you love, it can go further than you think...

‎"...θα πρέπει να αντιληφθείς, αγαπητή Τερέζα, ότι τα αντικείμενα δεν έχουν, κατά την άποψη μας, άλλη αξία από εκείνη που τους δίνει η φαντασία μας

What are books but tangible dreams? What is reading if it is not dreaming? The best books cause us to dream the rest are not worth reading.

Let us give ourselves indiscriminately to everything our passions suggest, and we will always be happy…Conscience is not the voice of Nature but only the voice of prejudice.

...that tender compunction of the honest-minded, so different from the hateful intoxication of criminals...

In order to know virtue, we must acquaint ourselves with vice. Only then can we know the true measure of a man.

A fan is like the thighs of a woman: It opens and closes. A good fan opens with a flick of the wrist. It produces its own weather---a breeze not so strong as to muss the hair.