Marquis de Sade

When we die, we die. No more.

So long as the laws remain such as they are today, employ some discretion: loud opinion forces us to do so; but in privacy and silence let us compensate ourselves for that cruel chastity we are obliged to display in public.

Crime is the soul of lust.

There is no better way to know death than to link it with some licentious image.

The more one degrades, the more one stimulates.

Nature has made us enemies of each other.

Lust is to the other passions what the nervous fluid is to life.

The most beautiful of Nature's works is the human being in the throes of passion.

There is no act more sublime than that of destruction.

Virtue is but a mask which one puts on and takes off according to need.

The most delicious of all pleasures is to be the cause of pleasure in others.

Cruelty, far from being a vice, is the first sentiment implanted in us by nature.

Nature has granted me a right to satisfy all my desires.

It is always by way of pain that one arrives at pleasure.

Crimes of passion are the most interesting.

The true way to live is to be without any laws.

There is no God, no heaven, no hell, no virtue, no vice, no good, no evil.

What are all the pleasures of the senses compared to the infinite joys of the spirit?

The more I see of men, the more I love dogs.

There is no such thing as an innocent pleasure.