“In order to know virtue, we must acquaint ourselves with vice. Only then can we know the true measure of a man.” — Marquis de Sade Copy Share Image
True happiness lies in the senses, and virtue gratifies none of them. — Marquis de Sade Copy Share Image
Virtue can procure only an imaginary happiness; true felicity lies only in the senses, and virtue gratifies none of them. — Marquis de Sade Copy Share Image
In order to know virtue, we must first acquaint ourselves with vice. — Marquis de Sade Copy Share Image
How delicious to corrupt, to stifle all semblances of virtue and religion in that young heart! — Marquis de Sade Copy Share Image
Happiness lies neither in vice nor in virtue; but in the manner we appreciate the one and the other, and the choice… — Marquis de Sade Copy Share Image
“Believe me, Eugenie, the words "vice" and "virtue" supply us only with local meanings. There is no action, however bizarre you may… — Marquis de Sade Copy Share Image
If God permits virtue to be persecuted on earth, it is not for us to question his intentions. It may be that… — Marquis de Sade Copy Share Image
Get it into your head once and for all, my simple and very fainthearted fellow, that what fools call humaneness is nothing… — Marquis de Sade Copy Share Image
Wolves which batten upon lambs, lambs consumed by wolves, the strong who immolate the weak, the weak victims of the strong: there… — Marquis de Sade Copy Share Image
It is certain that stealing nourishes courage, strength, skill, tact, in a word, all the virtues useful to a republican system and… — Marquis de Sade Copy Share Image
The mechanism that directs government cannot be virtuous, because it is impossible to thwart every crime, to protect oneself from every criminal… — Marquis de Sade Copy Share Image
Cruelty, very far from being a vice, is the first sentiment Nature injects in us all. The infant breaks his toy, bites… — Marquis de Sade Copy Share Image
What you call disorder is nothing else than one of the laws of the order you comprehend not and which you have erroneously named… — Marquis de Sade Copy Share
And if I were a naughty little boy, the idea is to spank me into good behavior? — Marquis de Sade Copy Share
There is a kind of pleasure which comes from sacrilege or the profanation of the objects offered us for worship. — Marquis de Sade Copy Share
“To enlighten mankind and improve its morals is the only lesson which we offer in this story. In reading it, may the world discover… — Marquis de Sade Copy Share
Happiness lies neither in vice nor in virtue; but in the manner we appreciate the one and the other, and the choice we make… — Marquis de Sade Copy Share
What does one want when one is engaged in the sexual act? That everything around you give you its utter attention, think only of… — Marquis de Sade Copy Share
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… — Marquis de Sade Copy Share
My passions, concentrated on a single point, resemble the rays of a sun assembled by a magnifying glass: they immediately set fire to whatever… — Marquis de Sade Copy Share
Imperious, choleric, irascible, extreme in everything, with a dissolute imagination the like of which has never been seen, atheistic to the point of fanaticism,… — Marquis de Sade Copy Share
“In order to know virtue, we must acquaint ourselves with vice. Only then can we know the true measure of a man.” — Marquis de Sade Copy Share
Never may an act of possession be exercised upon a free being; the exclusive possession of a woman is no less unjust than the… — Marquis de Sade Copy Share
