Marquis Sade 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

Your service will be arduous, it will be painful and rigorous, and the slightest delinquencies will be requited immediately with corporal and afflicting punishments; hence, I must recommend to you prompt exactness, submissiveness, and total self-abnegation that you be enabled to heed naught but our desires; let them be your laws, fly to do their bidding, anticipate them, cause them to be born ... — Marquis De Sade

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

Every death even the cruelest death
drowns in the total indifference of Nature
Nature herself would watch unmoved
if we destroyed the entire human race
I hate Nature
this passionless spectator this unbreakable iceberg-face
that can bear everything
this goads us to greater and greater acts — Peter Weiss

When a man loves a woman, as our old troubadours used to say, even if he has heard or seen something that puts his beloved in a bad light, he should believe neither his ears nor his eyes, he should listen to his heart alone. — Marquis De Sade

Social order at the expense of liberty is hardly a bargain — Marquis De Sade

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

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

The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind. — Marquis De Sade

Get it into your head once and for all, my simple and very fainthearted fellow, that what fools call humanness is nothing but a weakness born of fear and egoism; that this chimerical virtue, enslaving only weak men, is unknown to those whose character is formed by stoicism, courage, and philosophy. — Marquis De Sade

Any enjoyment is weakened when shared. — Marquis De Sade

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

I don't know what the heart is, not I: I only use the word to denote the mind's frailties. — Marquis De Sade

The past encourages me, the present electrifies me, and I have little fear for the future; and my hope is that the rest of my life shall by far surpass the extravagances of my youth. — Marquis De Sade

Conversation, like certain portions of the anatomy, always runs more smoothly when lubricated. — Marquis De Sade

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

To lie is always a necessity for women; above all when they choose to deceive, falsehood becomes vital to them. — Marquis De Sade

He's not getting out of here again ... But you don't have to go all Marquis de Sade on him either. Just kill him or let me. — Rachel Caine

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

There is a kind of pleasure which comes from sacrilege or the profanation of the objects offered us for worship. — 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

Here am I: at one stroke incestuous, adulteress, sodomite, and all that in a girl who only lost her maidenhead today! What progress, my friends with what rapidity I advance along the thorny road of vice! — Marquis De Sade

I didn't hit her, man, what happened was that Maria was obsessed with the Marquis de Sade and wanted to try the spanking thing," said Luscious Skin.
"That's very Maria," said Pancho. "She takes her reading seriously. — Roberto Bolano

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. — Marquis De Sade

No kind of sensation is keener and more active than that of pain its impressions are unmistakable. — Marquis De Sade

You say that my way of thinking cannot be tolerated? What of it? The man who alters his way of thinking to suit othere is a fool. My way of thinking is the result of my reflections. It is part of my inner being,the way I am made. I do not contradict them, and would not even if I wished to. For my system, which you disapprove of is also my greatest comfort in life, the source of all my happiness -it means more to me than my life itself. — Marquis De Sade

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. — Marquis De Sade

Thus, that happiness the two sexes cannot find with the other they will find, one in blind obedience, the other in the most energetic expression of his domination. — Marquis De Sade

True happiness lies in the senses, and virtue gratifies none of them. — Marquis De Sade

One must do violence to the object of one's desire; when it surrenders, the pleasure is greater. — Marquis De Sade

Before you were born, you were nothing more than an indistinguishable lump of unformed matter. After death, you simply will return to that nebulous state. You are going to become the raw material out of which new beings will be fashioned. Will there be pain in this natural process? No! Pleasure? No! Now, is there anything frightening in this? Certainly not! And yet, people sacrifice pleasure on earth in the hope that pain will be avoided in an after-life. The fools don't realize that, after death, pain and pleasure cannot exist: there is only the sensationless state of cosmic anonymity: therefore, the rule of life should be ... to enjoy oneself! — Marquis De Sade

It is only by sacrificing everything to sensual pleasure that this being known as Man, cast into the world in spite of himself, may succeed in sowing a few roses on the thorns of life. — Marquis De Sade

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

The President was in seventh heaven when he heard himself being teased like this; he strutted about and thrust his chest out; never did a man of the robe stick out his neck so far, not even one who has just hanged a man. — Marquis De Sade

The only way to a woman's heart is along the path of torment. — Marquis De Sade

We magistrates find that reason is the easiest thing in the world to dispense with; banished from our law courts as it is from our heads, we delight in trampling it underfoot, and that is what makes our judicial sentences such masterpieces, since (although commonsense never presides in them) those sentences are carried out with as much firmness as if people knew what they actually meant. — 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

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

But to declare his wishes only in some unknown corner of Asia, to choose the most double-dealing and the most superstitious of peoples as followers, and the vilest, most ridiculous, and most roguish working man as representative, to muddle up the message so much that it is impossible to comprehend, to teach it only to a tiny number of individuals while leaving everyone else in the dark, and to punish them for remaining there ... Oh, no, Therese, no, no, such atrocities cannot be our guide. I would rather die a thousand times than believe in them. When atheism wants martyrs, let it choose them and my blood is ready. — 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

Do the meager pleasures you have been able to enjoy during your fall compensate for the torments which now rend your heart? Happiness therefore lies only in virtue,my child, and all the sophistries of its detractors can never procure a single one of its delights. — Marquis De Sade

If it is the dirty element that gives pleasure to the act of lust, then the dirtier it is, the more pleasurable it is bound to be. — Marquis De Sade

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

Conspiracy! Intrigue! A rapidly thickening plot! Add some bestiality and a lecherous priest and I'd say you have the beginnings of a beautiful novel. — Marquis De Sade

When she's abandoned her moral center and teachings ... when she's cast aside her facade of propriety and lady-like demeanor ... when I have so corrupted this fragile thing and brought out a writhing, mewling, bucking, wanton whore for my enjoyment and pleasure ... enticing from within this feral lioness ... growling and scratching and biting ... taking everything I dish out to her ... at that moment she is never more beautiful to me. — Marquis De Sade

There is no rational commensuration between what affects us and what affects others; the first we sense physically, the other only touches us morally. — Marquis De Sade

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

Never lose sight of the fact that all human felicity lies in man's imagination, and that he cannot think to attain it unless he heeds all his caprices. The most fortunate of persons is he who has the most means to satisfy his vagaries. — Marquis De Sade

Women are not made for one single man; 'tis for men at large Nature created them. — Marquis De Sade

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. — Marquis De Sade

The more defects a man may have, the older he is, the less lovable, the more resounding his success. — Marquis De Sade

The debility to which Nature condemned women incontestably proves that her design is for man, who then more than ever enjoys his strength, to exercise it in all the violent forms that suit him best, by means of tortures, if he be so inclined, or worse. — Marquis De Sade

Madame, I have become a whore through good-will and libertine through virtue. — Marquis De Sade

Happiness is ideal, it is the work of the imagination. — Marquis De Sade

The man who alters his way of thinking to suit others is a fool. — Marquis De Sade

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. — Marquis De Sade

There is not a living man who does not wish to play the despot when he is stiff: it seems to him his joy is less when others appear to have as much fun as he; by an impulse of pride, very natural at this juncture, he would like to be the only one in the world capable of experiencing what he feels: the idea of seeing another enjoy as he enjoys reduces him to a kind of equality with that other, which impairs the unspeakable charm despotism causes him to feel. — Marquis De Sade

In completing your civilization, the causes changed, but you maintained the custom: no longer did you sacrifice victims to gods athirst for human blood, but to laws, which you deem sage because you found in them a specious reason to indulge your former habits, together with the semblance of a justice which was, at bottom, nothing other than the desire to preserve those horrid practices which you could not abjure. — Marquis De Sade

Happiness lies neither in vice nor in virtue; but in the manner we appreciate the one and the other, and the choice we make pursuant to our individual organization. — 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

God strung up his own son like a side of veal. I shudder to think what he would do to me. — Marquis De Sade

I wished to stifle the unhappy passion which burned in my soul; but is love an illness to be cured? All I endeavored to oppose to it merely fanned its flames. — Marquis De Sade

I've already told you: the only way to a woman's heart is along the path of torment. I know none other as sure. — Marquis De Sade

When we die, we die. No more. Once the spider-thread of life is severed, the human body is but a mass of corrupting vegetable matter. A feast for worms. That is all. Tell me, what is more ridiculous than the notion of an immortal soul; than the belief that when a man is dead, he remains alive, that when his life grinds to a halt, his soul
or whatever you call it
takes flight? — Marquis De Sade

life is a bitch so enjoy it ;p — Marquis De Sade

I have supported my deviations with reasons; I did not stop at mere doubt; I have vanquished, I have uprooted, I have destroyed everything in my heart that might have interfered with my pleasure. — Marquis De Sade

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She had already allowed her delectable lover to pluck that flower which, so different from the rose to which it is nevertheless sometimes compared, has not the same faculty of being reborn each spring. — Marquis De Sade

Religions are the cradles of despotism. — Marquis De Sade

It is certain that stealing nourishes courage, strength, skill, tact, in a word, all the virtues useful to a republican system and consequently to our own. Lay partiality aside, and answer me: is theft, whose effect is to distribute wealth more evenly, to be branded as a wrong in our day, under our government which aims at equality? Plainly, the answer is no. — Marquis De Sade

I write what I see, the endless procession to the guillotine. Were all lined up, waiting for the crunch of the blade ... the rivers of blood are flowing beneath our feet ... Ive been to hell, young man, youve only read about it. — Marquis De Sade

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

The state of a moral man, is one of tranquillity and peace; the state of an immoral man is one of perpetual unrest. — Marquis De Sade

Hope is the most sensitive part of a poor wretch's soul; whoever raises it only to torment him is behaving like the executioners in Hell who, they say, incessantly renew old wounds and concentrate their attention on that area of it that is already lacerated. — Marquis De Sade

How delicious to corrupt, to stifle all semblances of virtue and religion in that young heart! — Marquis De Sade

Variety, multiplicity are the two most powerful vehicles of lust. — Marquis De Sade

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

You are afraid of the people unrestrained-how ridiculous! — Marquis De Sade

Are your convictions so fragile that mine cannot stand in opposition to them? Is your God so illusory that the presence of my Devil reveals his insufficiency? — Marquis De Sade

The socialized state is to justice, order, and freedom what the Marquis de Sade is to love. — William F. Buckley Jr.

Why do you complain of your fate when you could so easily change it? — Marquis De Sade

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. — Marquis De Sade

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

Throw those Germans into a carriage, will you," said he to one of his hirelings, a man who was accustomed to doing what was needed under these circumstances, "get them out of here, they'll not wake up. Strip them and dump them naked in some out-of-the-way street. God takes care of his little children. — Marquis De Sade

Cruelty, very far from being a vice, is the first sentiment Nature injects in us all. — Marquis De Sade