Marquis de Sade Quotes

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Marquis de Sade

Profession : Novelist

Birth : June 2, 1740

There is no more lively sensation than that of pain; its impressions are certain and dependable, they never deceive as may those of the pleasure women perpetually feign and almost never experience.

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

Your body is the church where Nature asks to be reverenced.

Marquis de Sade

The imagination is the spur of delights... all depends upon it, it is the mainspring of everything; now, is it not by means of the imagination one knows joy? Is it not of the imagination that the sharpest pleasures arise?

Marquis de Sade

Truth titillates the imagination far less than fiction.

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

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

Marquis de Sade

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

Marquis de Sade

'Sex' 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

Destruction, hence, like creation, is one of Nature's mandates.

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

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

Social order at the expense of liberty is hardly a bargain.

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

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

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

Marquis de Sade

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

Marquis de Sade

The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind.

Marquis de Sade

All universal moral principles are idle fancies.

Marquis de Sade

The more defects a man may have, the older he is, the less lovable, the more resounding his success.

Marquis de Sade