Quotes By Marquis De Sade

Truth titillates the imagination far less than fiction.

The ultimate triumph of philosophy would be to cast light upon the mysterious ways in which Providence moves to achieve the designs it has for man.

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.

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

Nature, who for the perfect maintenance of the laws of her general equilibrium, has sometimes need of vices and sometimes of virtues, inspires now this impulse, now that one, in accordance with what she requires.

Religions are the cradles of despotism.

Between understanding and faith immediate connections must subsist.

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

Variety, multiplicity are the two most powerful vehicles of lust.

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.

Nature has not got two voices, you know, one of them condemning all day what the other commands.

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.