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Marquis de Sade

Marquis de Sade Quotes

Philosopher

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Famous Marquis de Sade Quotes

“Virtue only needs to be worshipped; it follows the path to happiness...it must be so, a thousand arms open to receive its devotees, if they are pursued by adversity. But everybody deserts the guilty man...one blushes at one's attachment to him or at the tears one sheds for him, there is a fear of contagion, he is banished from everybody's hearts, and one condemns out of pride the man one ought to help out of humanity.”

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Book:Virtue
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“Believe me, Eugenie, the words "vice" and "virtue" supply us only with local meanings. There is no action, however bizarre you may picture it, that is truly criminal; or one that can really be called virtuous. Everything depends on our customs and on the climates we live in. What is considered a crime here is often a virtue a few hundred leagues away; and the virtues of another hemisphere might, quite conversely, be regarded as crimes among us. There is no atrocity that hasn't been deified, no virtue that hasn't been stigmatized.”

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Book:Philosophy in the Boudoir
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“My dearest, we must stop seeing one another. There they are—cruel words. I put them down without dying. Follow me bravely. My father spoke as the master who demands to be obeyed. A convenient match appears, and that suffices. He didn't ask if I agreed but took into account only his own interests, wholly sacrificing my feelings to his caprices. Don't implicate my mother—she said and did all she could, and imagines doing still more. You know how much she loves me and you must be aware of her tender feelings for you. Our tears flowed together. The barbarian witnessed them but was not moved.”

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Book:Aline et Valcour
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“Franval, who was now absolutely at ease, thought on,y of upsetting others; he behaved in his vindictive, unruly, impetuous way when he was disturbed; he desired his own tranquility again at any price, and in order to obtain it he clumsily adopted the only means most likely to make him lose it once again. If he obtained it he used all his moral and physical facilities only to do harm to others; he was therefore always in a state of agitation, he had either to anticipate the wiles which he forced others to employ against him, or else he had to use them against others.”

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Book:Gothic Tales of the Marquis de Sade
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“...those who deny or oppose these so pleasant delights (of virtue), do so only from jealousy, you may be sure, from the barbarous pleasure of making others as guilty and unhappy as they are. They are blind and would like everyone to be the same, they are mistaken, and would like everyone else to be mistaken; but if you could see into the depths of their hearts you would find only sorrow and repentance; all these apostles of crime are only evil and desperate people; you would not find a sincere person among them who would not admit, if he were truthful, that their poisonous words or dangerous writings had not been guided only by their passions. And what man in fact can say in cold blood that the bases of morality can be shaken without risk? What being would dare maintain that doing good and desiring good are not essentially the aim of mankind? And how can a man who will do only evil expect to be happy in a society whose strongest concern is the perpetual increase of good? But will not this apologist of crime not shudder himself when he had uprooted from all hearts the only thing which could lead to his conversion? What will stop his servants ruining him, if they have ceased to be virtuous?”

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Book:Gothic Tales of the Marquis de Sade
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“Ne kadar tuhaf olduğunu düşünürseniz düşünün, mutlak anlamda canice olabilecek tek bir eylem olmadığı gibi mutlak anlamda erdemli denilebilecek tek bir eylem de yoktur. Her şey bizim geleneklerimize ve içinde yaşadığımız iklime bağlıdır; burada suç olan şey yüz fersah daha aşağıda çoğu zaman erdem kabul edilir, bir başka yarımkürede erdem olarak görülen şey, tersine dönerek bizim için suç olabilir. Tek bir dehşet yoktur ki tanrısallaştırılmamış olsun, tıpkı gölge düşürülmemiş tek bir erdem olmaması gibi…”

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Book:Philosophy in the Boudoir
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“Let a simple philosopher introduce these new pupils to the inscrutable but wonderful sublimities of Nature; let him prove to them that awareness of a god, often highly dangerous to men, never contributed to their happiness, and that they will not be happier for acknowledging as a cause of what they do not understand, something they well understand even less; that it is far less essential to inquire into the workings of Nature than to enjoy her and obey her laws; that these laws are as wise as they are simple; that they are written in the hearts of all men; and that it is but necessary to interrogate that heart to discern its impulse. If they wish absolutely that you speak to them of a creator, answer that things always having been what now they are, never having had a beginning and never going to have an end, it thus becomes as useless as impossible for man to be able to trace things back to an imaginary origin which would explain nothing and do not a jot of good. Tell them that men are incapable of obtaining true notions of a being who does not make his influence felt on one of our senses.”

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Book:Philosophy in the Boudoir
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“Fanchon, 69 years of age, has been hanged 6 times in effigy, and has committed all imaginable crimes; she has a squint, and is pug-nosed, short, fat, with no forehead and only 2 teeth; an erysipelas covers her arse, a bunch of haemorrhoids hangs from her arsehole, a canker devours her vagina, she has a burnt thigh and a cancer eating away at her breast; she is always drunk, vomits, farts and shits all over the place and at any time without even noticing.”

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Book:The 120 Days of Sodom
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“MADAME DE SAINT-ANGE — [...] And is there anything more ridiculous than to see a maiden of fifteen or sixteen, consumed by desires she is compelled to suppress, wait, and, while waiting, endure worse than hell's torments until it pleases her parents, having first rendered her youth miserable, further to sacrifice her riper years by immolating them to their perfidious cupidity when they associate her, despite her wishes, with a husband who either has nothing wherewith to make himself loved, or who possesses everything to make himself hated?”

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Book:Philosophy in the Boudoir
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“The man who desires women only to deceive them, who loves them only to possess them, who takes them only to betray them, and who scorns them when they no longer please him...the man for whom nothing is sacred when it comes to seducing them, and who triumphs only in order to disgrace them—will such a man, I say, ever feel the happiness of finding a virtuous woman, someone who could repair the disorder of his desires, and replace that shameful frivolity with the sweetness of those ties that bind when woven by marriage?”

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Book:La marquise de Gange
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“I think that if there were a God, there would be less evil on this earth. I believe that if evil exists here below, then either it was willed by God or it was beyond His powers to prevent it. Now I cannot bring myself to fear a God who is either spiteful or weak. I defy Him without fear and care not a fig for his thunderbolts.”

IfsThinkingBelieveWould BeCareEarthEvilI BelieveWeakGod ExistsFigsSpitefulThunderbolts
Book:The Misfortunes of Virtue and Other Early Tales
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“Cruelty, very far from being a vice, is the first sentiment Nature injects in us all. The infant breaks his toy, bites his nurse's breast, strangles his canary long before he is able to reason; cruelty is stamped in animals, in whom, as I think I have said, Nature's laws are more emphatically to be read than in ourselves; cruelty exists amongst savages, so much nearer to Nature than civilized men are; absurd then to maintain cruelty is a consequence of depravity. . . . Cruelty is simply the energy in a man civilization has not yet altogether corrupted: therefore it is a virtue, not a vice.”

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Author:Marquis de Sade
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“Certain souls seem hard because they are capable of strong feelings, and they sometimes go to rather extreme lengths; their apparent unconcern and cruelty are but ways, known only to themselves, of feeling more strongly than others.”

WaySoulSometimesHardFeelingsWisdomSeemsCertainTimeStrongChangeAbilityKnownKnowledgeStrengthCapableExtremesCrueltyLengthStrong Feeling
Book:The 120 days of Sodom and other writings
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“It has, moreover, been proven that horror, nastiness, and the frightful are what give pleasure when one fornicates. Beauty is a simple thing; ugliness is the exceptional thing. And fiery imaginations, no doubt, always prefer the extraordinary thing to the simple thing.”

GivingImaginationSimplePleasureBeautyDoubtHorrorExtraordinaryNo DoubtProvenExceptionalUglinessSimple ThingsFieryExtraordinary ThingsNastiness
Book:The 120 days of Sodom and other writings
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“If the objects who serve us feel ecstacy, they are much more often concerned with themselves than with us, and our own enjoyment is consequently impaired. 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.”

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Book:The 120 days of Sodom and other writings
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“Consider the problem from the point of view of evil, evil being almost always pleasure's true and major charm; considered thus, the crime must appear greater when perpetrated upon a being of your identical sort than when inflicted upon one which is not, and this once established, the delight automatically doubles.”

ProblemLightTruthEvilPleasureViewsDarknessGreaterCrimeHonestyMajorsExcellenceDelightPoint Of ViewCharmIdentical
Book:120 days of sodom
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“What do I see in the God of that infamous sect if not an inconsistent and barbarous being, today the creator of a world of destruction he repents of tomorrow; what do I see there but a frail being forever unable to bring man to heel and force him to bend a knee. This creature, although emanated from him, dominates him, knows how to offend him and thereby merit torments eternally! What a weak fellow, this God!”

IfsKnowsMenWorldGodTodayForceReligiousKnow HowForeverTomorrowCreaturesWeakDestructionFellowsCreatorKneesMeritHeelsTormentRepentSectsInconsistentFrailInfamous
Author:Marquis de Sade
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