Marquis de Sade
Marquis de Sade
Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, was a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer, famous for his libertine sexuality. His works include novels, short stories, plays, dialogues, and political tracts; in his lifetime some were published under his own name, while others appeared anonymously and de Sade denied being their author. De Sade is best known for his erotic works, which combined philosophical discourse with pornography, depicting sexual fantasies with an emphasis on violence, criminality, and blasphemy against the...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth2 June 1740
CountryFrance
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.
Crime is to the passions what nervous fluid is to life: it sustains them, it supplies their strength.
All, all is theft, all is unceasing and rigorous competition in nature; the desire to make off with the substance of others is the foremost - the most legitimate - passion nature has bred into us and, without doubt, the most agreeable one.
They declaim against the passions without bothering to think that it is from their flame philosophy lights its torch.
Humane sentiments are baseless, mad, and improper; they are incredibly feeble; never do they withstand the gainsaying passions, never do they resist bare necessity.
Lust's passion will be served; it demands, it militates, it tyrannizes.
Lust is to the other passions what the nervous fluid is to life; it supports them all, lends strength to them all ambition, cruelty, avarice, revenge, are all founded on lust.
Sexual pleasure is, I agree, a passion to which all others are subordinate but in which they all unite.
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.
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.
'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.
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.
One is never so dangerous when one has no shame, than when one has grown too old to blush.
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.