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Quote by Marquis de Sade

“and how can you be happy when you can find satisfaction at any moment? It is not in pleasure that happiness consists, it is in desire – it is in breaking the chains that hold back this desire;”

Quote by Marquis de Sade

Book:The 120 Days of Sodom
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The 120 Days of Sodom

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Marquis de Sade
Marquis de Sade

Marquis de Sade, born on June 2, 1740, and died on December 2, 1814, was a prominent French philosopher and writer of the 18th century. He is known for his profound reflections on freedom, morality, and human behavior. more

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“Nevertheless, there are many respects, in tiny and contemptible matters, where our curiosity is provoked every day. How often do we slip, who can count? How many times we initially act as if we put up with people telling idle tales in order not to offend the weak, but then gradually we find pleasure in listening. I now do not watch a dog chase a rabbit when this is happening at the circus. But if by chance I am passing when coursing occurs in the countryside, it distracts me perhaps indeed from thinking out some weighty matter. The hunt turns me to an interest in the sport, not enough to lead me to alter the direction of the beast I am riding, but shifting the inclination of my heart. Unless you had proved to me my infirmity and quickly admonished me either to take the sight as the start for some reflection enabling me to rise up to you or wholly to scorn and pass the matter by, I would be watching like an empty-headed fool. When I am sitting at home, a lizard catching flies or a spider entrapping them as they rush into its web often fascinates me. The problem is not made any different by the fact that the animals are small. The sight leads me on to praise you, the marvellous Creator and orderer of all things; but that was not how my attention first began. It is one thing to rise rapidly, another thing not to fall.”

PleasureCuriosityFallingAugustineAppetitesFallenness
Book:Confessions
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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?”

PleasureFilthLibertines
Book:The 120 Days of Sodom
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