Quote

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.

Marquis de Sade

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Marquis de Sade
Age: 74 †
Born: 1740
Born: June 2
Died: 1814
Died: December 2
Novelist
Philosopher
Playwright
Writer
Paris
France
Donatien Alphonse François de Sade
Marquis De Sade
Donatien Alphonse François Sade
Comte de Sade
marquis de Sade
Sometimes
Laws
Equilibrium
Needs
General
Maintenance
Virtue
Inspires
Literature
Virtues
Law
Impulse
Perfect
Vices
Nature
Requires
Need
Inspire
Accordance

More quotes by Marquis de Sade

Image
They declaim against the passions without bothering to think that it is from their flame philosophy lights its torch.
Marquis de Sade
Image
One weeps not save when one is afraid, and that is why kings are tyrants.
Marquis de Sade
Image
The primary and most beautiful of Nature's qualities is motion, which agitates her at all times, but this motion is simply a perpetual consequence of crimes, she conserves it by means of crimes only.
Marquis de Sade
Image
Nothing we can do outrages Nature directly. Our acts of destruction give her new vigour and feed her energy, but none of our wreckings can weaken her power.
Marquis de Sade
Image
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.
Marquis de Sade
Image
There is a kind of pleasure which comes from sacrilege or the profanation of the objects offered us for worship.
Marquis de Sade
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 disorder because its effects, though good for Nature, run counter to your convenience or jar your opinions.
Marquis de Sade
Image
If God permits virtue to be persecuted on earth, it is not for us to question his intentions. It may be that his rewards are held over for another life, for is it not true as written in Holy Scripture that the Lord chastenenth only the righteous! And after all, is not virtue it's own reward?
Marquis de Sade
Image
Humane sentiments are baseless, mad, and improper they are incredibly feeble never do they withstand the gainsaying passions, never do they resist bare necessity.
Marquis de Sade
Image
Prejudice is the sole author of infamies: how many acts are so qualified by an opinion forged out of naught but prejudice!
Marquis de Sade
Image
In order to know virtue, we must first acquaint ourselves with vice.
Marquis de Sade
Image
My manner of thinking, so you say, cannot be approved. Do you suppose I care? A poor fool indeed is he who adopts a manner of thinking to suit other people! My manner of thinking stems straight from my considered reflections it holds with my existence, with the way I am made. It is not in my power to alter it and were it, I'd not do so.
Marquis de Sade
Image
It is certainly no crime to depict the bizarre ideas that nature inspires.
Marquis de Sade
Image
Sex should be a perfect balance of pain and pleasure. Without that symmetry, sex becomes a routine rather than an indulgence.
Marquis de Sade
Image
I assumed that everything must yield to me, that the entire universe had to flatter my whims, and that I had the right to satisfy them at will.
Marquis de Sade
Image
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?
Marquis de Sade
Image
The reasoning man who scorns the prejudices of simpletons necessarily becomes the enemy of simpletons he must expect as much, and laugh at the inevitable.
Marquis de Sade
Image
Man's natural character is to imitate that of the sensitive man is to resemble as closely as possible the person whom he loves. It is only by imitating the vices of others that I have earned my misfortunes.
Marquis de Sade
Image
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.
Marquis de Sade
Image
Destruction, hence, like creation, is one of Nature's mandates.
Marquis de Sade