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The 120 Days of Sodom

Book by Marquis de Sade · 17 quotes · Pleasure, Crime, Arse

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The 120 Days of Sodom Quotes

“In my thirty years as a judge I have only ever pronounced in favour of the death penalty." "And don't you think," I asked him, "that you might have some reason to reproach yourself for the deaths of these people – as you would with a murder?" "Goodness!" he said. "Must we dwell on this?" "But," I told him, "this is nonetheless what polite society would call an absolute horror." "Oh," he replied, "one must learn to accept the horror of anything that makes one hard, and for one very simple reason – which is that this thing, however appalling you would like to think it might be, is no longer horrifying for you the moment it makes you come; it only remains so therefore in other people's eyes, but who can tell me that the opinions of others – which are almost always wrong on every score – are not equally so on this one? Nothing," he continued, "is fundamentally good or fundamentally bad – everything is simply relative to our customs, opinions and prejudices. Once this point is established, it is entirely possible that something perfectly indifferent in its own right might nevertheless seem contemptible in your eyes and yet most delightful in mine; and the moment I develop a liking for it – as difficult as it may be to determine its true worth – the moment it amuses me, would I not be mad to deprive myself of it just because you disapprove?”

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“The rest of that worn and withered body – that arse of taffeta chiné, that gaping, rancid hole in the middle, those mutilations to the breast and to three fingers, that stunted leg that makes her limp, that toothless mouth – all of this inflames, excites our two libertines: Durcet sucks her from in front, Curval from behind, and while objects of the most exquisite beauty and utmost freshness are there before them, ready to satisfy their slightest desires, it is with something that Nature and crime have defiled, have withered, it is with the filthiest and most disgusting object that our two ecstatic lechers will taste the most delectable pleasures....And who can explain man after that?”

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“There are no more than two or three crimes to commit in the world,’ said Curval. ‘Once those are done there is no more to be said – what remains is inferior and one no longer feels a thing. How many times, good God, have I not wished it were possible to attack the sun, to deprive the universe of it, or to use it to set the world ablaze – those would be crimes indeed, and not the little excesses in which we indulge, which do no more than metamorphose, in the course of a year, a dozen creatures into clods of earth.”

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“That evening the sexes of the quadrilles were reversed, with all the little girls as sailors, and all the little boys as grisettes – it was a ravishing sight. Nothing inflames lust like this sensual little switch: one is pleased to find in a little boy that which makes him resemble a little girl, and a girl is much more alluring when, in order to please, she borrows from the sex one would prefer her to have.”

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“How many times, by God’s bloody prick, have I longed to be able to detonate planets, to destroy the sun itself, to pluck it from the universe and crash it into the earth, annihilating all Creation and replacing it with a lightless void of violence. Ah, that would be a crime! A cosmic crime, dwarfing the petty misdemeanours we are committing here, limited as we are to snuffing out a few meaningless souls”

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“How many times, by God’s bloody prick, have I longed to be able to detonate planets, to destroy the sun itself, to puck it from the universe and crash it into the earth, annihilating all Creation and replacing it with a lightless void of violence. Ah, that would be a crime! A cosmic crime, dwarfing the petty misdemeanours we are committing here, limited as we are to snuffing out a few meaningless souls.”

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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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