Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos Quotes & Sayings

When one woman strikes at the heart of another, she seldom misses, and the wound is invariably fatal. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

I had to flatter them the whole evening to appease them; for old women must not be angered - they make young women's reputations. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

Yet I cannot believe that this talisman of love has lost all its power and I still attempt to use it.

- Those who have never had occasion to feel sometimes the value of a word, of an expression, consecrated by love will find no sense in this phrase. (C. de L.) — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

Like most intellectuals he is intensely stupid. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

But where shall happiness be found if a reciprocal love does not procure it? — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

Fools are here below for our minor pleasures. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

The real way of vanquishing scruples is to leave those who have them nothing to lose. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

born to avenge my sex and to dominate yours — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

Oh, keep your warnings and your fears for those giddy women who call themselves women of feeling, whose heated imaginations persuade them that nature has placed their senses in their heads; who, having never thought about it, invariably confuse love with a lover; who, with their stupid delusions, imagine that the man with whom they have found pleasure is pleasure's only source; and, like all the superstitious, accord that faith and respect to the priest which is due to only the divinity. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

One should only permit excess with those one intends to leave soon. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

You may conquer her love of God: you will never overcome her fear of the devil. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

One must not permit oneself excesses, except with persons whom one wishes soon to leave. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

She refuses all amorous alms, and such a refusal, to my view, justifies a theft. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

Your orders are charming; your manner of giving them still more delightful; you would make tyranny itself adored. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

He'd call me false and faithless and I've always had a weakness for those two words; next to cruel, they're the nicest words for a woman to hear, and not so hard to earn. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

I perceive your lovers purely as the successors of Alexander the Great, incompetent joint rulers of an empire where I once ruled supreme. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

*Take my advice, do like me and get yourself another lover. This is good advice, in fact it's very good advice: if you don't like it, it's not my fault.*

*Farewell my angle. I've enjoyed having you and I've no regrets leaving you. I may come back to you. That's the of the world. It's not my fault.* — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

I willingly allow that money does not guarantee happiness; but it must also be allowed that it makes happiness a great deal easier to achieve. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

It has become necessary for me to have this woman, so as to save myself from the ridicule of being in love with her: for to what lengths will a man not be driven by thwarted desire? — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

Good-bye, my fair friend; beware of the amusing or capricious ideas which always seduce you too easily. Remember that in the career you are following, intelligence is not enough and that a single imprudence may become an irreparable misfortune. And finally sometime allow prudent friendship to guide your pleasures.
Good-bye, I still love you as much as if you were reasonable. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

You know better than I, Monsieur,' said he, 'that to lie with a girl is only to make her do what pleases her; there is often a great distance between that and making her do what we want. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

It is not for the illusion of a moment to govern the choice of a lifetime. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

Believe me, Vicomte, people rarely acquire the qualities they can dispense with. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

Haven't you realized that pleasure, which is indeed certainly the one and only reason for the two sexes to come together, is nevertheless not enough to establish a relationship between them? And that though this pleasure is preceded by desire which draws people together, it is however followed by aversion which pushes them apart? It's a law of nature which only love can change. Can we feel love whenever we want? Yet love is always needed, which would be a dreadfully tiresome thing if it hadn't fortunately been realized that it's enough for just one of the partners to feel it, thereby halving the problem, and without even incurring any great loss; in fact, one party is happy to love, the other to please, which is actually a bit less exciting but which can be combined with the pleasure of deceiving and that evens things out, so everyone's happy. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

If, for example, I had just as much love as you had virtue (and that is surely saying a lot) it is not astonishing that one should end at the same time as the other. It is not my fault. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

I am astonished at the pleasure one experiences in doing good; and I should be tempted to believe that what we call virtuous people have not so much merit as they lead us to suppose. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

Indeed, if to be in love is not to be able to live without possessing that person one desires, to sacrifice to her one's time, one's pleasures, one's life, then I am really in love. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

Once certain of arriving, why hurry on the journey so fast? — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

Madame de Merteuil, though indeed a woman highly regarded, has perhaps only one fault: she overestimates her ability; she's a skilful driver who enjoys guiding her chariot between rocks and precipices and whose sole justification is that she remains unscathed. We can certainly praise but it would be unwise to follow her; she agrees with that view and condemns herself for it. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

How characteristic of your perverse heart that longs only for what happens to be out of reach. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

A man enjoys the happiness he feels, a woman the happiness she gives. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

Moreover it is easier, in the informality of conversation, to achieve that excitement and incoherence which is the true eloquence of love. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

I shall possess this woman; I shall steal her from the husband who profanes her: I will even dare ravish her from the God whom she adores. What delight, to be in turns the object and the victor of her remorse! Far be it from me to destroy the prejudices which sway her mind! They will add to my happiness and my triumph. Let her believe in virtue, and sacrifice it to me; let the idea of falling terrify her, without preventing her fall; and may she, shaken by a thousand terrors, forget them, vanquish them only in my arms. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

Don't you remember that love, like medicine, is only the art of encouraging nature? — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

Agonized by her longing to go on thinking of her lover, and her fear of damnation if she does, she has hit on the idea of praying God to make her forget him and as she keeps on making this prayer every minute of the day, she's found a way of never letting him out of her mind. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

Have you forgotten that love, like medicine, is simply the art of aiding nature? — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

It was there, in particular, that I confirmed the truth that love, which we cry up as the source of our pleasures, is nothing more than an excuse for them. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

Now, I'm not going to deny that I was aware of your beauty. But the point is, this has nothing to do with your beauty. As I got to know you, I began to realise that beauty was the least of your qualities. I became fascinated by your goodness. I was drawn in by it. I didn't understand what was happening to me. And it was only when I began to feel actual, physical pain every time you left the room that it finally dawned on me: I was in love, for the first time in my life. I knew it was hopeless, but that didn't matter to me. And it's not that I want to have you. All I want is to deserve you. Tell me what to do. Show me how to behave. I'll do anything you say. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

The arrows of love, like Achilles' sword, carry with them the remedy for the wounds they cause. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

Love, hatred, you have only to choose; they all sleep under the same roof; you can double your existence, caress with one hand and strike with the other. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

Truth to tell, the longer I live, the more I'm tempted to think that the only moderately worthwhile people in the world are you and I. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

They have neither thought nor being, and merely repeat indifferently and uncomprehendingly everything they hear, retaining within themselves an absolute void. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

I need only to be shown my mistakes and I never rest until I have retrieved them. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

It is very easy for you to say what I ought to do, there is nothing to prevent you; but if you had felt how much it hurts to see the grief of a person one loves, how his joy becomes yours, and how difficult it is to say No when you want to say Yes, you would not be surprised at anything; I felt it myself, I felt it very keenly, I do not yet understand it. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

I can see that you're in love, but only in a very narrow sense. It's the love of someone that finds charms and qualities in a woman that she doesn't actually have, who puts her in a class apart with every one else in second place, and who stays attached to her even while he's abusing her. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

Marquise de Merteuil: I've distilled every thing to one single principle: win or die. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

Indeed, if first loves appear in general more virtuous and, as they say, more chaste; if they are at least slower in their progress; it is not, as people think, from delicacy or timidity, but because the heart, surprised by an unknown sentiment, hesitates as it were at every step to enjoy the charm it feels, and because this charm is so powerful upon a fresh heart that it forgets every other pleasure. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

I see you are already as timid as a slave: you might as well be in love. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

Who can wish for happiness that is bought at the price of reason, whose fleeting pleasures are at least followed by regret, if not remorse? — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

Humanity is not perfect in any fashion; no more in the case of evil than in that of good. The criminal has his virtues, just as the honest man has his weaknesses. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

Will you, then, never grow weary of being unjust? — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos

All publicity is good publicity. — Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos De Laclos