Quotes from Marquis de Sade

Behold, my love, behold all that I simultaneously do: scandal, seduction, bad example, incest, adultery, sodomy! Oh, Satan! one and unique God of my soul, inspire thou in me something yet more, present further perversions to my smoking heart, and then shalt thou see how I shall plunge myself into them all!

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.

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.

Crime is the soul of lust. What would pleasure be if it were not accompanied by crime It is not the object of debauchery that excites us, rather the idea of evil.

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.

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

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

One weeps not save when one is afraid, and that is why kings are tyrants.

Sex is as important as eating or drinking and we ought to allow the one appetite to be satisfied with as little restraint or false modesty as the other.

Sexual pleasure is, I agree, a passion to which all others are subordinate but in which they all unite.

Social order at the expense of liberty is hardly a bargain.

The degradation which characterizes the state into which you plunge him by punishing him pleases, amuses, and delights him. Deep down he enjoys having gone so far as to deserve being treated in such a way.

The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind.

The pleasure of the senses is always regulated in accordance with the imagination. Man can aspire to felicity only by serving all the whims of his imagination.

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

There is no God, Nature sufficeth unto herself; in no wise hath she need of an author.

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.

What does one want when one is engaged in the sexual act That everything around you give you its utter attention, think only of you, care only for you...every man wants to be a tyrant when he fornicates.

You say that my way of thinking cannot be tolerated? What of it? The man who alters his way of thinking to suit others 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.