Marquis Quotes & Sayings

The Marquis De Sade said that the most important experiences a man can have are those that take him to the very limit; that is the only way we learn, because it requires all our courage. When a boss humiliates an employee, or a man humiliates his wife, he is merely being cowardly or taking his revenge on life, they are people who have never dared to look into the depths of their soul, never attempted to know the origin of that desire to unleash the wild beast, or to understand that sex, pain and love are all extreme experiences. Only those who know those frontiers know life; everything else is just passing the time, repeating the same tasks, growing old and dying without ever having discovered what we are doing here. — Paulo Coelho

Sex should be a perfect balance of pain and pleasure. Without that symmetry, sex becomes a routine rather than an indulgence. — Marquis De Sade

An optimist is a guy that has never had much experience. — Don Marquis

The circumstances of human society are too complicated to be submitted to the rigor of mathematical calculation. — Marquis De Custine

The wine is drawn, M. le Marquis...we must drink it.' — William Makepeace Thackeray

As for me, said the little marquise, I am too used to being a girl, and I want to remain one all my life. How could I bring myself to wear a man's hat?

And I, said the marquis, have used a sword more than once without disgracing myself. I'll tell you about my adventures some day. Let's continue as we are, then. Beautiful marquise, enjoy all the pleasures of your sex, and I shall enjoy all the pleasures of mine. — Francois-Timoleon De Choisy

The more amorous the President became, the more his fatuousness made him intolerable: there is nothing in the world as comical as a lawyer in love - he is the perfect picture of gaucheness, impertinence and ineptitude. — Marquis De Sade

Then she revived him with an ardor and skill he could not have imagined in the meager pleasures of his solitary lovemaking, and without glory deprived him of his virginity. He was fifty-two years old and she was twenty-three, but age was the least pernicious of the differences between them. They continued to make hurried, heartless siesta love in the evangelical shade of the orange trees. The madwomen encouraged them from the terraces with indecent songs, and celebrated their triumphs with stadium ovations. Before the Marquis was aware of the dangers that pursued him, Bernarda woke him from his stupor with the news that she was in the second month of pregnancy. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

You don't understand," Mairelon said dully. "Kim doesn't want to marry a toff."
Was that what was bothering him? "Well, of all the bacon-brained, sapskulled, squirish, buffle-headed nod cocks!" Kim said with as much indignation as she could muster. "I was talking about the marquis, not about you!"
Mairelon's eyes kindled. "Then you would?"
"You've whiddled it," Kim informed him.
As he kissed her again, she heard Mrs. Lowe murmur, "Mind your language, Kim," and Shoreham say in an amused tone, "Yes, Your Grace, I believe that
was an affirmative answer. — Patricia C. Wrede

Certain souls may seem harsh to others, but it is just a way, beknownst only to them, of caring and feeling more deeply. — Marquis De Sade

When the government violates the people's rights, insurrection is, for the people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred of the rights and the most indispensible of duties. — Marquis De Lafayette

Any enjoyment is weakened when shared. — Marquis De Sade

I am almost ashamed to answer,' she said. 'As I have said before, Emily
Fox-Seton has become the lodestar of my existence. I cannot live without
her. She has walked over to Maundell to make sure that we do not have a
dinner-party without fish to-night.'
'She has _walked_ over to Maundell,' said Lord Walderhurst
'after
yesterday?'
'There was not a pair of wheels left in the stable,' answered Lady
Maria. 'It is disgraceful, of course, but she is a splendid walker, and
she said she was not too tired to do it. It is the kind of thing she
ought to be given the Victoria Cross for
saving one from a dinner-party
without fish.'
The Marquis of Walderhurst took up the cord of his monocle and fixed the
glass rigidly in his eye.
'It is not only four miles to Maundell,' he remarked, staring at the
table-cloth, not at Lady Maria, 'but it is four miles back. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

An optimist is a man who has never had much experience. — Don Marquis

Fear not lest precautions and protective contrivances diminish your pleasure: mystery only adds thereto. — Marquis De Sade

Whatever may be my feelings of personal gratitude to the Navy of the United States, I feel myself under still greater obligations to them for the honor they have done to the American name in every part of the globe. — Marquis De Lafayette

Humanity has gained its suit; Liberty will nevermore be without an asylum. — Marquis De Lafayette

Man's natural character is to imitate; that of the sensitive man is to resemble as closely as possible the person whom he loves. It is only by imitating the vices of others that I have earned my misfortunes. — Marquis De Sade

My passions, concentrated on a single point, resemble the rays of a sun assembled by a magnifying glass: they immediately set fire to whatever object they find in their way. — Marquis De Sade

What I should like to find is a crime the effects of which would be perpetual, even when I myself do not act, so that there would not be a single moment of my life even when I were asleep, when I was not the cause of some chaos, a chaos of such proportions that it would provoke a general corruption or a distubance so formal that even after my death its effects would still be felt. — Marquis De Sade

Almost overnight it became laughable to read writers like Cheever or Updike, who wrote about the suburbia Madeleine and most of her friends had grown up in, in favor of reading the Marquis de Sade, who wrote about anally deflowering virgins in eighteenth-century France. The reason de Sade was preferable was that his shocking sex scenes weren't about sex but politics. They were therefore anti-imperialist, anti-bourgeois, anti-patriarchal, and anti-everything a smart young feminist should be against. — Jeffrey Eugenides

For although we may fully respect our social conventions ... it may unfortunately happen that , through the perversity of others we encounter only the thorns of life, whilst the wicked gather nothing but roses.
will it not be said that virtue, however fair she may be, becomes the worst cause one can espouse ... when she has grown so weak that she cannot struggle against vice?
- La Nouvelle Justine ou les Malheurs de la vertu, suivie de l'histoire de Juliette — Marquis De Sade

It is not the opinions or the vices of private individuals that are harmful to the State, but rather the behavior of public figures. — Marquis De Sade

We are no guiltier in following the primative impulses that govern us than is the Nile for her floods or the sea for her waves. — Marquis De Sade

How long did they stay there in that room, on the narrow bed? She had a scar on her shoulder, in the shape of a star, that Louis couldn't help but run his lips over. A souvenir of a fall from a horse. It got dark. They could hear the clattering of hooves, a whinny, and the high-pitched voice of the marquis giving orders at more and more distant intervals, like a motif on a flute, clear and desolate, returning again and again. — Patrick Modiano

Everyone gets what they want most," Marquis mused. "I can't think of anything more terrifying. — Wildbow

So long as the laws remain such as they are today, employ some discretion: loud opinion forces us to do so; but in privacy and silence let us compensate ourselves for that cruel chastity we are obliged to display in public. — Marquis De Sade

My heart hath followed all my days Something I cannot name. — Don Marquis

Religion is no more national than conscience. — Victor De Riqueti, Marquis De Mirabeau

I gave my heart to the Americans and thought of nothing else but raising my banner and adding my colors to theirs. — Marquis De Lafayette

Religions are the cradles of despotism. — Marquis De Sade

Ours is a world where people don't know what they want and are willing to go through hell to get it. - DON MARQUIS — John C. Maxwell

An idea isn't responsible for the people who believe it. — Don Marquis

Men do not often dare to avow, even to themselves, the slow progress reason has made in their minds; but they are ready to follow it if it is presented to them in a lively and striking manner, and forces them to recognize it. — Nicolas De Caritat, Marquis De Condorcet

Honesty is a good thing,
but it is not profitable
to its possessor unless
it is kept under control. — Don Marquis

I read, I study, I examine, I listen, I think, and out of all that I try to form an idea into which I put as much common sense as I can. — Marquis De Lafayette

Successful people are the ones who think up things for the rest of the world to keep busy at. — Don Marquis

Chimerical and empty being, your name alone has caused more blood to flow on the face of the earth than any political war ever will. Return to the nothingness from which the mad hope and ridiculous fright of men dared call you forth to their misfortune. You only appeared as a torment for the human race. What crimes would have been spared the world, if they had choked the first imbecile who thought of speaking of you. — Marquis De Sade

Punctuality is one of the cardinal business virtues: always insist on it in your subordinates. — Don Marquis

The law which attempts a man's life [capital punishment] is impractical, unjust, inadmissible. It has never repressed crime
for a second crime is every day committed at the foot of the scaffold. — Marquis De Sade

One time, I was given an essay topic: to describe a perfect horse, whom the mere sight of the rider's whip would make obedient. I depicted this perfect horse throwing his rider at the sight of the whip. — Marquis De Lafayette

The high cost of living isnt so bad if you dont have to pay for it — Don Marquis

There does not exist any religious system, or supernatural extravagance, which is not founded on an ignorance of the laws of nature. — Marquis De Condorcet

Never was a man further from a partiality for Spain than I am. But I think I now have left them in a sincere and steady intention to cultivate the friendship of America. — Marquis De Lafayette

Happiness lies only in that which excites, and the only thing that excites is crime. — Marquis De Sade

Ah, but I'm not a gentleman," said the Marquis. "I have it on the best of authority that I am only a
nobleman."
"Good gracious, Vidal, who in the world dared to say such a thing?" cried his cousin, instantly
diverted.
"Mary," replied his lordship, pouring himself out a glass of wine. — Georgette Heyer

Of middle age the best that can be said is that a middle-aged person has likely learned how to have a little fun in spite of his troubles. — Don Marquis

The most pleasant and useful persons are those who leave some of the problems of the universe for God to worry about. — Don Marquis

In Russia, whatever be the appearance of things, violence and arbitrary rule is at the bottom of them all. Tyranny rendered calm by the influence of terror is the only kind of happiness which this government is able to afford its people. — Marquis De Custine

Islington smiled superciliously. "Lucifer?" It said. "Lucifer was an idiot. It wound up lord and master of nothing at all." The marquis grinned. "And you wound up lord and master of two thugs and a roomful of candles? — Neil Gaiman

Prejudice is the sole author of infamies: how many acts are so qualified by an opinion forged out of naught but prejudice! — Marquis De Sade

I get up in the morning with an idea for a three-volume novel and by nightfall it's a paragraph in my column. — Don Marquis

The slave preaches the virtues of kindness and humility to his master, because as a slave he has need of them;but the master, better guided by nature and his passions, has no need to devote himself to anything excepting those things which serve or please him. Be as kind as you wish, if you enjoy such things - but dont demand any reward for having had this pleasure — Marquis De Sade

Nothing quite encourages as does one's first unpunished crime. — Marquis De Sade

Were he supreme, were he mighty, were he just, were he good, this God you tell me about, would it be through enigmas and buffooneries he would wish to teach me to serve and know him? — Marquis De Sade

Lycurgus, Numa, Moses, Jesus Christ, Mohammed, all these great rogues, all these great thought-tyrants, knew how to associate the divinities they fabricated with their own boundless ambition. — Marquis De Sade

Let us give ourselves indiscriminately to everything our passions suggest, and we will always be happy ... Conscience is not the voice of Nature but only the voice of prejudice. — 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

But the woman who stood knitting looked up steadily, and looked the Marquis in the face. — Charles Dickens

I shall ask for the abolition for the punishment of death until I have the infallibility of human judgment demonstrated to me. — Marquis De Lafayette

Somewhere in your nursery rhymes," Cranleigh said, intruding yet again, "you must have learned that men do talk. They compare. They
judge. They even, Lady Amelia, are known to make coarse jests."
"Darling Cranleigh," Sophia said from behind her. "How generous of you to instruct Lady Amelia, who is surely the most innocent woman of my acquaintance, in the habits of the man about Town. Certainly, if a woman is to find her way to the altar, with the appropriate man at her side, she does need keen instruction. Naturally, her brother, the Marquis of Hawksworth, is not the man for the job, as no brother ever is for a sister. But you, you have risen up to help Lady Amelia. I don't know the last time I've seen such gallantry in action. — Claudia Dain

Oh, there are plenty of people," the Duc used to observe, "who never misbehave save when passion spurs them to ill; later, the fire gone out of them, their now calm spirit peacefully returns to the path of virtue and, thus passing their life going from strife to error and from error to remorse, they end their days in such a way there is no telling just what roles they have enacted on earth. Such persons," he would continue, "must surely be miserable: forever drifting, continually undecided, their entire life is spent detesting in the morning what they did the evening before. Certain to repent of the pleasures they taste, they take their delight in quaking, in such sort they become at once virtuous in crime and criminal in virtue. — Marquis De Sade

What do prisoners do? Write, of course; even if they have to use blood as ink, as the Marquis de Sade did. The reasons they write, the exquisitely frustrating restrictions of their autonomy and the fact that no one listens to their cries, are all the reasons that mentally ill people, and even many normal people write. We write to escape our prisons. — Alice Weaver Flaherty

Is it not a strange blindness on our part to teach publicly the techniques of warfare and to reward with medals those who prove to be the most adroit killers? — Marquis De Sade

If the world were not so full of people, and most of them did not have to work so hard, there would be more time for them to get out and lie on the grass, and there would be more grass for them to lie on. — Don Marquis

I had displeased the jacobins by blaming their aristocratic usurpation of legitimate powers; the priests of all sorts by claiming religious liberty; the anarchists by repressing them; and the conspirators by rejecting their offers. — Marquis De Lafayette

My youth i shall never forget
but there s nothing i really regret
wotthehell wotthehell
there s a dance in the old dame yet
toujours gai toujours gai — Don Marquis

A hundred years after his death, a statue of Lavoisier was erected in Paris and much admired until someone pointed out that it looked nothing like him. Under questioning the sculptor admitted that he had used the head of the mathematician and philosopher the Marquis de Condorcet - apparently he had a spare - in the hope that no one would notice or, having noticed, would care. In the second regard he was correct. The statue of Lavoisier-cum- Condorcet was allowed to remain in place for another half century until the Second World War when, one morning, it was taken away and melted down for scrap. — Bill Bryson

Nature has made men free and equal. The distinctions necessary for social order are only founded on general utility. — Marquis De Lafayette

Old godheads sink in space and drown Their arks like foundered galleons sucked down. — Don Marquis

I can assure the Marquis de Chasteler that it is my unalterable determination never to set foot on any territory which acknowledges obedience to His Majesty the King of Bohemia and Hungary. — Marquis De Lafayette

Excuse me,' he said. 'I know this is a personal question. But are you clinically insane?'
'Possible, but very unlikely. Why? — Neil Gaiman

A hypocrite is a person who - but who isn't? — Don Marquis

I once heard the survivors of a colony of ants that had been partially obliterated by a cow's foot seriously debating the intention of the gods towards their civilization. — Don Marquis

Censors are necessary, increasingly necessary, if America is to avoid having a vital literature. — Don Marquis

Without Thomas Jefferson and his Declaration of Independence, there would have been no American revolution that announced universal principles of liberty. Without his participation by the side of the unforgettable Marquis de Lafayette, there would have been no French proclamation of The Rights of Man. Without his brilliant negotiation of the Louisiana treaty, there would be no United States of America. Without Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, there would have been no Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom, and no basis for the most precious clause of our most prized element of our imperishable Bill of Rights - the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. — Christopher Hitchens

There is bound to be a certain amount of trouble running any country. If you are president, the trouble happens to you. But if you are a tyrant you can arrange things so that most of the trouble happens to other people. — Don Marquis

Murder is a horror, but an often necessary horror, never criminal, which it is essential to tolerate in a republican State. Is it or is it not a crime? If it is not, why make laws for its punishment? And if it is, by what barbarous logic do you, to punish it, duplicate it by another crime? — Marquis De Sade

I look back on my life
and it seems to me to be
just one damned kitten
after another — Don Marquis

Richard wondered how the marquis managed to make being pushed around in a wheelchair look like a romantic and swashbuckling thing to do. — Neil Gaiman

I also remember being struck by de Sade's will, in which he asked that his ashes be scattered to the four corners of the earth in the hope that humankind would forget both his writings and his name. I'd like to be able to make that demand; commemorative ceremonies are not only false but dangerous, as are all statues of famous men. Long live forgetfulness, I've always said - the only dignity I see is in oblivion. — Luis Bunuel

Julian was the son of Diokles of Sparta, also known as Diokles the Butcher. That man made the Marquis de Sade look like Ronald McDonald. (Ben) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

The crowd roared as the man took the stage. Even through the glass, Skyler could hear the sound — Samuel Marquis

No form of government matters nearly as much as the spirit and intelligence brought to the administration of any form of government. — Don Marquis

That tender compunction of the honest-minded, so different from the hateful intoxication of criminals ... — Marquis De Sade

I became obnoxious to the Jacobins because I reprobated their aristocracy, which aimed at usurping all legitimate authority. — Marquis De Lafayette

Publishing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo. — Don Marquis

Nations have always good reasons for being what they are, and the best of all is that they cannot be otherwise. — Marquis De Custine

The Spaniards are slow in their motions but strong in their attachments. — Marquis De Lafayette

Fishing: a delusion entirely surrounded by liars in old clothes. — Don Marquis

Whether or not it is dangerous to read Sade is a question that easily becomes lost in a multitude of others and has never been settled except by those whose arguments are rooted in the conviction that reading leads to trouble. So it does; so it must, for reading leads nowhere but to questions. — Richard Seaver

Don Marquis came down after a month on the wagon, ambled over to the bar, and announced, 'I've conquered that goddamn willpower of mine. Gimme a double Scotch. — E.B. White

Self-interest lies behind all that men do, forming the important motive for all their actions; this rule has never deceived me — Marquis De Sade

What's happening?" he asked.
The Marquis spared him a glance, and then returned his gaze to the action in front of them. "You," he said, "are out of your depth, in deep shit, and, I would imagine, a few hours away from an untimely and undoubtedly messy end. We on the other hand are auditioning bodyguards. — Neil Gaiman

Humanity has won its battle. Liberty now has a country. — Marquis De Lafayette

I do not believe I am exaggerating in affirming that the empire of Russia is a country whose inhabitants are the most miserable on earth, because they suffer at one and the same time the evils of barbarism and of civilization. — Marquis De Custine

Enjoy your own life without comparing it with that of another. — Marquis De Condorcet

The good fortune of America is closely tied to the good fortune of all humanity. — Marquis De Lafayette

Nothing we can do outrages Nature directly. Our acts of destruction give her new vigour and feed her energy, but none of our wreckings can weaken her power. — Marquis De Sade

The primary and most beautiful of Nature's qualities is motion, which agitates her at all times, but this motion is simply a perpetual consequence of crimes, she conserves it by means of crimes only. — Marquis De Sade