Marquis de Sade

I have been punished for my thoughts, not for my actions.

The greatest pleasure of all is to corrupt others.

To destroy is to create.

The only good is that which is contrary to nature.

I am an atheist, and I believe in nothing.

The more one sins, the more one lives.

There is no true happiness without crime.

My philosophy is simple: pleasure above all else.

The man who alters his way of thinking to suit others is a fool.

Destruction, hence, like creation, is one of Nature's mandates.

Nature has endowed each of us with a capacity for kindly feelings: let us not squander them on others.

Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness.

A pretty girl ought simply to concern herself with fucking, and never with engendering.

No need to touch at greater length on what pertains to the full business of population, from now on we shall address ourselves principally, nay, uniquely to those libertine lecheries whose spirit is in no way reproductive.

There is nothing more delicious to see or do. I refer to both: for it is just as pleasant to spy upon someone as to want to be observed.

One today, another tomorrow, you've got to be a whore, a whore in body and soul.

Ah, a little of this, a little of that, it's my life's happiness, you know. I've not much patience with mild or tidy pleasures.

Is it for you, mankind, to pronounce on what is good and what is evil?

Wolves which batten upon lambs, lambs consumed by wolves, the strong who immolate the weak, the weak victims of the strong: there you have Nature, there you have her intentions, there you have her scheme: a perpetual action and reaction, a host of vices, a host of virtues, in one word, a perfect equilibrium resulting from the equality of good and evil on earth.

In order to know virtue, we must first acquaint ourselves with vice.