Bondage & Discipline, Submission, S & M

Marquis of Sade Quotations

"Imperious, choleric, irascible, extreme in everything, with a dissolute imagination the like of which has never been seen, atheistic to the point of fanaticism, there you have me in a nutshell, and kill me again or take me as I am, for I shall not change."

Philosophy in the budoir

"I am about to put foward some major ideas; they will be heard and pondered. If not all of them please, surely a few will; in some sort, then, I shall have contributed to the progress of our age, and shall be content."

"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."

"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."

The 120 Days of Sodom

"If the objects who serve us feel ecstacy, they are much more often concerned with themselves than with us, and our own enjoyment is consequently impaired. The idea of seeing another person experience the same pleasure reduces one to a kind of equality which spoils the unutterable charms that come from despotism."

"Any enjoyment is weakened when shared."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

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

"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."

"All universal moral principles are idle fantasies."

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

"It has, moreover, been proven that horror, nastiness, and the frightful are what give pleasure when one fornicates. Beauty is a simple thing; ugliness is the exceptional thing. And firey imaginations, no doubt, always prefer the extraordinary thing to the simple thing."

Aline et Valcour

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

"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."

"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."

"Let us dare do violence to this unintelligible Nature, the better to master the art of enjoying her."

"Has not Nature proved, in giving us the strength necessary to submit them to our desires, that we have the right to do so?"

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

"All creatures are born isolated and have no need of one another."

"Now I beg of you to tell me whether I must love a human being simply because he exists or resembles me and whether for those reasons alone I must suddenly prefer him to myself?"

"What lack of movement! What ice! Nothing stirs me, nothing excites me...I ask you, is this pleasure? What a difference on the other side! What tickling of my senses! What excitement in my organs!"

"Happiness lies only in that which excites, and the only thing that excites is crime."

"True felicity lies only in the senses, and virtue gratifies none of them.

Marquis of Sade Quotations