Marquis de Sade Quotes

• So 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 Sade

• She had already allowed her delectable lover to pluck that flower which, so different from the rose to which it is nevertheless sometimes compared, has not the same faculty of being reborn each spring.

  Marquis de Sade

• “S*x” is as important as eating or drinking and we ought to allow the one appetite to be satisfied with as little restraint or false modesty as the other.

  Marquis de Sade

• Sensual excess drives out pity in man.

  Marquis de Sade

• Religions are the cradles of despotism.

  Marquis de Sade

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

  Marquis de Sade

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

  Marquis de Sade

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

  Marquis de Sade

• Never 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. The most fortunate of persons is he who has the most means to satisfy his vagaries.

  Marquis de Sade

• Nature, who for the perfect maintenance of the laws of her general equilibrium, has sometimes need of vices and sometimes of virtues, inspires now this impulse, now that one, in accordance with what she requires.

  Marquis de Sade

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

  Marquis de Sade

• My manner of thinking, so you say, cannot be approved. Do you suppose I care? A poor fool indeed is he who adopts a manner of thinking for others!

  Marquis de Sade

• Man’s natural character is to imitate; that of the sensitive man is to resemble as closely as possible the person whom he loves. It is only by imitating the vices of others that I have earned my misfortunes.

  Marquis de Sade

• Lust’s passion will be served; it demands, it militates, it tyrannizes.

  Marquis de Sade

• Lust is to the other passions what the nervous fluid is to life; it supports them all, lends strength to them all ambition, cruelty, avarice, revenge, are all founded on lust.

  Marquis de Sade

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

  Marquis de Sade

• It is always by way of pain one arrives at pleasure.

  Marquis de Sade

• In order to know virtue, we must first acquaint ourselves with vice.

  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

• Happiness 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 Sade

Marquis de Sade (47)

Birth:	2nd June, 1740
Death:	2nd December, 1814
Nationality:	French
Profession:	Critic, Philosopher, Poet, Politician, Writer

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