Quotes from Marquis de Sade

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

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

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.

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

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

There is no God, Nature sufficeth unto herself; in no wise hath she need of an author.

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.

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.

You say that my way of thinking cannot be tolerated? What of it? The man who alters his way of thinking to suit others is a fool. My way of thinking is the result of my reflections. It is part of my inner being, the way I am made. I do not contradict them, and would not even if I wished to. For my system, which you disapprove of, is also my greatest comfort in life, the source of all my happiness --- it means more to me than my life itself.