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Truth Titillates The Imagination Far Less Than Fiction.
-Marquis De Sade
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Truth Titillates The Imagination

Marquis De Sade
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Truth Titillates The Imagination Far Less Than Fiction.

Understanding the Quote: "truth titillates the imagination far less than fiction...."

This quote by Marquis De Sade reflects deeply on the theme of imagination. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Imagination, Fiction, Literature, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Marquis de Sade interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Marquis De Sade

Marquis De Sade is celebrated for insightful thoughts on imagination and fiction. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Imagination
Fiction
Literature
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There Is A Kind Of Pleasure Which Comes From Sacrilege Or The Profanation Of The Objects Offered Us For Worship.
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The Most Fortunate Of Persons Is He Who Has The Most Means To Satisfy His Vagaries.
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Evil Is... A Moral Entity And Not A Created One, An Eternal And Not A Perishable Entity: It Existed Before The World; It Constituted The Monstrous, The Execrable Being Who Was Also To Fashion Such A Hideous World. It Will Hence Exist After The Creatures Which People This World
Fashion
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Humane Sentiments Are Baseless, Mad, And Improper; They Are Incredibly Feeble; Never Do They Withstand The Gainsaying Passions, Never Do They Resist Bare Necessity.
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All, All Is Theft, All Is Unceasing And Rigorous Competition In Nature; The Desire To Make Off With The Substance Of Others Is The Foremost - The Most Legitimate - Passion Nature Has Bred Into Us And, Without Doubt, The Most Agreeable One.
Passion
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Is It Not A Strange Blindness On Our Part To Teach Publicly The Techniques Of Warfare And To Reward With Medals Those Who Prove To Be The Most Adroit Killers?
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I Have Supported My Deviations With Reasons; I Did Not Stop At Mere Doubt; I Have Vanquished, I Have Uprooted, I Have Destroyed Everything In My Heart That Might Have Interfered With My Pleasure.
Art
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Hope Is The Most Sensitive Part Of A Poor Wretch's Soul; Whoever Raises It Only To Torment Him Is Behaving Like The Executioners In Hell Who, They Say, Incessantly Renew Old Wounds And Concentrate Their Attention On That Area Of It That Is Already Lacerated.
Hope
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Cruelty, Very Far From Being A Vice, Is The First Sentiment Nature Injects In Us All.
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Every Principle Is A Judgment, Every Judgment The Outcome Of Experience, And Experience Is Only Acquired By The Exercise Of The Senses . . .
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Anything Beyond The Limits And Grasp Of The Human Mind Is Either Illusion Or Futility; And Because Your God Having To Be One Or The Other Of The Two, In The First Instance I Should Be Mad To Believe In Him, And In The Second A Fool.
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The Ultimate Triumph Of Philosophy Would Be To Cast Light Upon The Mysterious Ways In Which Providence Moves To Achieve The Designs It Has For Man.
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Let Not Your Zeal To Share Your Principles Entice You Beyond Your Borders.
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There Is No God, Nature Sufficeth Unto Herself; In No Wise Hath She Need Of An Author.
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Fear Not Lest Precautions And Protective Contrivances Diminish Your Pleasure: Mystery Only Adds Thereto.
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In An Age That Is Utterly Corrupt, The Best Policy Is To Do As Others Do.
War
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It Is Only By Enlarging The Scope Of One’s Tastes And One’s Fantasies, By Sacrificing Everything To Pleasure, That The Unfortunate Individual Called Man, Thrown Despite Himself Into This Sad World, Can Succeed In Gathering A Few Roses Among Life’s Thorns
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Sacrificing Everything
Certain Souls May Seem Harsh To Others, But It Is Just A Way, Beknownst Only To Them, Of Caring And Feeling More Deeply.
Caring
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Here Am I: At One Stroke Incestuous, Adulteress, Sodomite, And All That In A Girl Who Only Lost Her Maidenhead Today! What Progress, My Friends With What Rapidity I Advance Along The Thorny Road Of Vice!
Girl
Progress
Vices
The Imagination Is The Spur Of Delights... All Depends Upon It, It Is The Mainspring Of Everything; Now, Is It Not By Means Of The Imagination One Knows Joy? Is It Not Of The Imagination That The Sharpest Pleasures Arise?
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No Kind Of Sensation Is Keener And More Active Than That Of Pain Its Impressions Are Unmistakable.
Pain
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Your Body Is The Church Where Nature Asks To Be Reverenced.
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If Nature Denies Eternity To Beings, It Follows That Their Destruction Is One Of Her Laws. Now, Once We Observe That Destruction Is So Useful To Her That She Absolutely Cannot Dispense With It From This Moment Onward The Idea Of Annihilation Which We Attach To Death Ceases To Be Real What We Call The End Of The Living Animal Is No Longer A True Finish, But A Simple Transformation, A Transmutation Of Matter. According To These Irrefutable Principles, Death Is Hence No More Than A Change Of Form, An Imperceptible Passage From One Existence Into Another.
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We Monsters Are Necessary To Nature Also.
Monsters
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Conspiracy! Intrigue! A Rapidly Thickening Plot! Add Some Bestiality And A Lecherous Priest And I'd Say You Have The Beginnings Of A Beautiful Novel.
Beautiful
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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.
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Chimerical And Empty Being, Your Name Alone Has Caused More Blood To Flow On The Face Of The Earth Than Any Political War Ever Will. Return To The Nothingness From Which The Mad Hope And Ridiculous Fright Of Men Dared Call You Forth To Their Misfortune. You Only Appeared As A Torment For The Human Race. What Crimes Would Have Been Spared The World, If They Had Choked The First Imbecile Who Thought Of Speaking Of You.
War
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The Mirror Sees The Man As Beautiful, The Mirror Loves The Man; Another Mirror Sees The Man As Frightful And Hates Him; And It Is Always The Same Being Who Produces The Impressions.
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Happiness Lies Only In That Which Excites, And The Only Thing That Excites Is Crime.
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Variety, Multiplicity Are The Two Most Powerful Vehicles Of Lust.
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Dread Not Infanticide; The Crime Is Imaginary: We Are Always Mistress Of What We Carry In Our Womb, And We Do No More Harm In Destroying This Kind Of Matter Than In Evacuating Another, By Medicines, When We Feel The Need.
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Religions Are The Cradles Of Despotism.
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What We Are Doing Here Is Only The Image Of What We Would Like To Do.
Are Your Convictions So Fragile That Mine Cannot Stand In Opposition To Them? Is Your God So Illusory That The Presence Of My Devil Reveals His Insufficiency?
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The Horror Of Wedlock, The Most Appalling, The Most Loathsome Of All The Bonds Humankind Has Devised For Its Own Discomfort And Degradation.
Marriage
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It Is Not My Mode Of Thought That Has Caused My Misfortunes, But The Mode Of Thought Of Others.
Kinky
Literature
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She Had Already Allowed Her Delectable Lover To Pluck That Flower Which, So Different From The Rose To Which It Is Nevertheless Sometimes Compared, Has Not The Same Faculty Of Being Reborn Each Spring.
Spring
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Certain Souls Seem Hard Because They Are Capable Of Strong Feelings, And They Sometimes Go To Rather Extreme Lengths; Their Apparent Unconcern And Cruelty Are But Ways, Known Only To Themselves, Of Feeling More Strongly Than Others.
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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.
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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.
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I Want To Be The Victim Of His Errors.
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Beauty Belongs To The Sphere Of The Simple, The Ordinary, Whilst Ugliness Is Something Extraordinary, And There Is No Question But That Every Ardent Imagination Prefers In Lubricity, The Extraordinary To The Commonplace
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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.
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Were He Supreme, Were He Mighty, Were He Just, Were He Good, This God You Tell Me About, Would It Be Through Enigmas And Buffooneries He Would Wish To Teach Me To Serve And Know Him?
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What Is More Immoral Than War?
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No Lover, If He Be Of Good Faith, And Sincere, Will Deny He Would Prefer To See His Mistress Dead Than Unfaithful.
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What I Should Like To Find Is A Crime The Effects Of Which Would Be Perpetual, Even When I Myself Do Not Act, So That There Would Not Be A Single Moment Of My Life Even When I Were Asleep, When I Was Not The Cause Of Some Chaos, A Chaos Of Such Proportions That It Would Provoke A General Corruption Or A Distubance So Formal That Even After My Death Its Effects Would Still Be Felt.
Would Be
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What Do I See In The God Of That Infamous Sect If Not An Inconsistent And Barbarous Being, Today The Creator Of A World Of Destruction He Repents Of Tomorrow; What Do I See There But A Frail Being Forever Unable To Bring Man To Heel And Force Him To Bend A Knee. This Creature, Although Emanated From Him, Dominates Him, Knows How To Offend Him And Thereby Merit Torments Eternally! What A Weak Fellow, This God!
God
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The More Defects A Man May Have, The Older He Is, The Less Lovable, The More Resounding His Success.
Men
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Social Order At The Expense Of Liberty Is Hardly A Bargain.
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For Mortal Men There Is But One Hell, And That Is The Folly And Wickedness And Spite Of His Fellows; But Once His Life Is Over, There's An End To It: His Annihilation Is Final And Entire, Of Him Nothing Survives.
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The Majority Of Pop Stars Are Complete Idiots In Every Respect.
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Between Understanding And Faith Immediate Connections Must Subsist.
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Murder Is A Horror, But An Often Necessary Horror, Never Criminal, Which It Is Essential To Tolerate In A Republican State. Is It Or Is It Not A Crime? If It Is Not, Why Make Laws For Its Punishment? And If It Is, By What Barbarous Logic Do You, To Punish It, Duplicate It By Another Crime?
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Every Principle Is A Judgment, Every Judgment The Outcome Of Experience, And Experience Is Only Acquired By The Exercise Of The Senses; Whence It Follows That Religious Principles Bear Upon Nothing Whatever And Are Not In The Slightest Innate. Ignorance And Fear, You Will Repeat To Them, Ignorance And Fear - Those Are The Twin Bases Of Every Religion.
Religious
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It Is Certainly No Crime To Depict The Bizarre Ideas That Nature Inspires.
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There Is No More Lively Sensation Than That Of Pain; Its Impressions Are Certain And Dependable, They Never Deceive As May Those Of The Pleasure Women Perpetually Feign And Almost Never Experience.
Pain
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Get It Into Your Head Once And For All, My Simple And Very Fainthearted Fellow, That What Fools Call Humanness Is Nothing But A Weakness Born Of Fear And Egoism; That This Chimerical Virtue, Enslaving Only Weak Men, Is Unknown To Those Whose Character Is Formed By Stoicism, Courage, And Philosophy.
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If The Objects Who Serve Us Feel Ecstacy, They Are Much More Often Concerned With Themselves Than With Us, And Our Own Enjoyment Is Consequently Impaired. The Idea Of Seeing Another Person Experience The Same Pleasure Reduces One To A Kind Of Equality Which Spoils The Unutterable Charms That Come From Despotism.
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Why Do You Complain Of Your Fate When You Could So Easily Change It?
Fate
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Lust Is To The Other Passions What The Nervous Fluid Is To Life; It Supports Them All, Lends Strength To Them All Ambition, Cruelty, Avarice, Revenge, Are All Founded On Lust.
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Passion
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Happiness Is Ideal, It Is The Work Of The Imagination.
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Virtue Can Procure Only An Imaginary Happiness; True Felicity Lies Only In The Senses, And Virtue Gratifies None Of Them.
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My Passions, Concentrated On A Single Point, Resemble The Rays Of A Sun Assembled By A Magnifying Glass: They Immediately Set Fire To Whatever Object They Find In Their Way.
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One Must Do Violence To The Object Of One's Desire; When It Surrenders, The Pleasure Is Greater.
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The Debility To Which Nature Condemned Women Incontestably Proves That Her Design Is For Man, Who Then More Than Ever Enjoys His Strength, To Exercise It In All The Violent Forms That Suit Him Best, By Means Of Tortures, If He Be So Inclined, Or Worse.
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Men
It Is Always By Way Of Pain One Arrives At Pleasure.
Pain
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And If I Were A Naughty Little Boy, The Idea Is To Spank Me Into Good Behavior?
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Boys
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It Is Not The Opinions Or The Vices Of Private Individuals That Are Harmful To The State, But Rather The Behavior Of Public Figures.
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Lycurgus, Numa, Moses, Jesus Christ, Mohammed, All These Great Rogues, All These Great Thought-tyrants, Knew How To Associate The Divinities They Fabricated With Their Own Boundless Ambition.
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Never Lose Sight Of The Fact That All Human Felicity Lies In Man's Imagination, And That He Cannot Think To Attain It Unless He Heeds All His Caprices. The Most Fortunate Of Persons Is He Who Has The Most Means To Satisfy His Vagaries.
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Men
Behold, My Love, Behold All That I Simultaneously Do: Scandal, Seduction, Bad Example, Incest, Adultery, Sodomy! Oh, Satan! One And Unique God Of My Soul, Inspire Thou In Me Something Yet More, Present Further Perversions To My Smoking Heart, And Then Shalt Thou See How I Shall Plunge Myself Into Them All!
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Sex Without Pain Is Like Food Without Taste
Sex
Pain
Taste
Lust's Passion Will Be Served; It Demands, It Militates, It Tyrannizes.
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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 For Others!
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It Requires Only Two Things To Win Credit For A Miracle: A Mountebank And A Number Of Silly Women.
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Silly
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There Are Thorns Everywhere, But Along The Path Of Vice, Roses Bloom Above Them.
Rose
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Thorns
Crime Is To The Passions What Nervous Fluid Is To Life: It Sustains Them, It Supplies Their Strength.
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Nervous
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The Pleasure Of The Senses Is Always Regulated In Accordance With The Imagination. Man Can Aspire To Felicity Only By Serving All The Whims Of His Imagination.
Men
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Pleasure
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 Committed At The Foot Of The Scaffold.
Men
Law
Feet
One Weeps Not Save When One Is Afraid, And That Is Why Kings Are Tyrants.
Fake People
Kings
Tyrants
Nature Has Endowed Each Of Us With A Capacity For Kindly Feelings: Let Us Not Squander Them On Others.
Feelings
Capacity
Miserable Creatures, Thrown For A Moment On The Surface Of This Little Pile Of Mud, Is It Decreed That One Half Of The Flock Should Be The Persecutor Of The Other? Is It For You, Mankind, To Pronounce On What Is Good And What Is Evil?
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Can We Become Other Than What We Are?
Sexual Pleasure Is, I Agree, A Passion To Which All Others Are Subordinate But In Which They All Unite.
Sex
Passion
Pleasure
Truth Titillates The Imagination Far Less Than Fiction.
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Fiction
Literature
The Idea Of God Is The Sole Wrong For Which I Cannot Forgive Mankind.
Ideas
Forgiving
Religion
Crime Is The Soul Of Lust. What Would Pleasure Be If It Were Not Accompanied By Crime? It Is Not The Object Of Debauchery That Excites Us, Rather The Idea Of Evil.
Ideas
Evil
Soul
How Delightful Are The Pleasures Of The Imagination! In Those Delectable Moments, The Whole World Is Ours; Not A Single Creature Resists Us, We Devastate The World, We Repopulate It With New Objects Which, In Turn, We Immolate. The Means To Every Crime Is Ours, And We Employ Them All, We Multiply The Horror A Hundredfold.
Mean
Imagination
World
Sensual Excess Drives Out Pity In Man.
Men
Sensual
Excess
One Must Feel Sorry For Those Who Have Strange Tastes, But Never Insult Them. Their Wrong Is Nature's Too; They Are No More Responsible For Having Come Into The World With Tendencies Unlike Ours Than Are We For Being Born Bandy-legged Or Well-proportioned.
Sorry
World
Taste
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.
Love
Life
Sex
Do Not Breed. Nothing Gives Less Pleasure Than Childbearing. Pregnancies Are Damaging To Health, Spoil The Figure, Wither The Charms, And It's The Cloud Of Uncertainty Forever Hanging Over These Events That Darkens A Husband's Mood.
Husband
Pregnancy
Clouds
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.
Running
Order
Law
The Primary And Most Beautiful Of Nature's Qualities Is Motion
Beautiful
Quality
Primaries
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?
Quiet
Reason
Humans
Sex Should Be A Perfect Balance Of Pain And Pleasure. Without That Symmetry, Sex Becomes A Routine Rather Than An Indulgence.
Sex
Pain
Perfect
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.
Sex
Men
Thinking
I Am About To Put Foward Some Major Ideas; They Will Be Heard And Pondered. If Not All Of Them Please, Surely A Few Will; In Some Sort, Then, I Shall Have Contributed To The Progress Of Our Age, And Shall Be Content.
Military
War
Ideas
'til The Infallibility Of Human Judgements Shall Have Been Proved To Me, I Shall Demand The Abolition Of The Penalty Of Death.
Judgement
Demand
Penalties
Is It Not Of The Imagination That The Sharpest Pleasures Arise?
Imagination
Pleasure
Arise
How Delicious To Corrupt, To Stifle All Semblances Of Virtue And Religion In That Young Heart!
Heart
Virtue
Young
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.
Strong
Evil
Perfect
Prejudice Is The Sole Author Of Infamies: How Many Acts Are So Qualified By An Opinion Forged Out Of Naught But Prejudice!
Prejudice
Opinion
Sole
At All Times, In Every Century, Every Age, There Has Been Such A Connection Between Despotism And Religion That It Is Infinitely Apparent And Demonstrated A Thousand Times Over, That In Destroying One, The Other Must Be Undermined, For The Simple Reason That The First Will Always Put The Law Into The Service Of The Second.
Simple
Law
Age
Never May An Act Of Possession Be Exercised Upon A Free Being; The Exclusive Possession Of A Woman Is No Less Unjust Than The Possession Of Slaves; All Men Are Born Free, All Have Equal Rights: Never Should We Lose Sight Of Those Principles; According To Which Never May There Be Granted To One Sex The Legitimate Right To Lay Monopolizing Hands Upon The Other, And Never May One Of The Sexes, Or Classes, Arbitrarily Possess The Other.
Sex
Men
Rights
The Man Who Alters His Way Of Thinking To Suit Others Is A Fool.
Men
Thinking
Way
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.
Change
Beautiful
Nature
I Write What I See, The Endless Procession To The Guillotine. Were All Lined Up, Waiting For The Crunch Of The Blade... The Rivers Of Blood Are Flowing Beneath Our Feet... Ive Been To Hell, Young Man, Youve Only Read About It.
Writing
Men
Blood
Don't Have Children: They Deform Women's Bodies And Turn Into An Enemy 20 Years Later.
Sex
Children
Years
Either Kill Me Or Take Me As I Am, Because I'll Be Damned If I Ever Change.
Life
Take Me As I Am
Kill Me
You Are Afraid Of The People Unrestrained-how Ridiculous!
People
Ridiculous
Conversation, Like Certain Portions Of The Anatomy, Always Runs More Smoothly When Lubricated.
Running
Quills
Conversation
One Is Never So Dangerous When One Has No Shame, Than When One Has Grown Too Old To Blush.
Shame
Dangerous
Let Us Give Ourselves Indiscriminately To Everything Our Passions Suggest, And We Will Always Be Happy...conscience Is Not The Voice Of Nature But Only The Voice Of Prejudice.
Passion
Voice
Giving
I Don't Know What The Heart Is, Not I: I Only Use The Word To Denote The Mind's Frailties.
Heart
Mind
Use
Cruelty, Very Far From Being A Vice, Is The First Sentiment Nature Injects In Us All. The Infant Breaks His Toy, Bites His Nurse's Breast, Strangles His Canary Long Before He Is Able To Reason; Cruelty Is Stamped In Animals, In Whom, As I Think I Have Said, Nature's Laws Are More Emphatically To Be Read Than In Ourselves; Cruelty Exists Amongst Savages, So Much Nearer To Nature Than Civilized Men Are; Absurd Then To Maintain Cruelty Is A Consequence Of Depravity. . . . Cruelty Is Simply The Energy In A Man Civilization Has Not Yet Altogether Corrupted: Therefore It Is A Virtue, Not A Vice.
Men
Thinking
Animal
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.
Country
Passion
Law
Love Is Stronger Than Pride
Love
Romantic
Pride
You Say That My Way Of Thinking Cannot Be Tolerated? What Of It? The Man Who Alters His Way Of Thinking To Suit Othere 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.
Mean
Thinking
Reflection
Happiness Lies Neither In Vice Nor In Virtue; But In The Manner We Appreciate The One And The Other, And The Choice We Make Pursuant To Our Individual Organization.
Happiness
Lying
Organization
Are Wars Anything But The Means Whereby A Nation Is Nourished, Whereby It Is Strengthened, Whereby It Is Buttressed?
War
Mean
Literature
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?
Earth
May
Rewards
The Impossibility Of Outraging Nature Is The Greatest Anguish Man Can Know.
Men
Anguish
Knows
I've Been To Hell. You've Only Read About It.
Hell
The Degradation Which Characterizes The State Into Which You Plunge Him By Punishing Him Pleases, Amuses, And Delights Him. Deep Down He Enjoys Having Gone So Far As To Deserve Being Treated In Such A Way.
Happiness
Light
Joy
God Strung Up His Own Son Like A Side Of Veal. I Shudder To Think What He Would Do To Me.
Religious
Son
Thinking
In Libertinage, Nothing Is Frightful, Because Everything Libertinage Suggests Is Also A Natural Inspiration; The Most Extraordinary, The Most Bizarre Acts, Those Which Most Arrantly Seem To Conflict With Every Law, Every Human Institution... Even Those That Are Not Frightful, And There Is Not One Amongst Them All That Cannot Be Demonstrated Within The Boundaries Of Nature.
Inspiration
Law
Conflict
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.
Sex
Sea
Wave
The Completest Submissiveness Is Your Lot, And That Is All.
Imperious, Choleric, Irascible, Extreme In Everything, With A Dissolute Imagination The Like Of Which Has Never Been Seen, Atheistic To The Point Of Fanaticism, There You Have Me In A Nutshell, And Kill Me Again Or Take Me As I Am, For I Shall Not Change.
Imagination
Atheism
Take Me As I Am
Any Enjoyment Is Weakened When Shared.
Enjoyment
Nature Has Not Got Two Voices, You Know, One Of Them Condemning All Day What The Other Commands.
Two
Voice
Command
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.
Giving
Energy
Destruction
Consider The Problem From The Point Of View Of Evil, Evil Being Almost Always Pleasure's True And Major Charm; Considered Thus, The Crime Must Appear Greater When Perpetrated Upon A Being Of Your Identical Sort Than When Inflicted Upon One Which Is Not, And This Once Established, The Delight Automatically Doubles.
Truth
Honesty
Light
Your Service Will Be Arduous, It Will Be Painful And Rigorous, And The Slightest Delinquencies Will Be Requited Immediately With Corporal And Afflicting Punishments; Hence, I Must Recommend To You Prompt Exactness, Submissiveness, And Total Self-abnegation That You Be Enabled To Heed Naught But Our Desires; Let Them Be Your Laws, Fly To Do Their Bidding, Anticipate Them, Cause Them To Be Born.
Self
Law
Punishment
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.
Law
Long
Silence
I've Already Told You: The Only Way To A Woman's Heart Is Along The Path Of Torment. I Know None Other As Sure.
Heart
Kinky
Literature
Destruction, Hence, Like Creation, Is One Of Nature's Mandates.
Nature
Reality
Creation
I Think That If There Were A God, There Would Be Less Evil On This Earth. I Believe That If Evil Exists Here Below, Then Either It Was Willed By God Or It Was Beyond His Powers To Prevent It. Now I Cannot Bring Myself To Fear A God Who Is Either Spiteful Or Weak. I Defy Him Without Fear And Care Not A Fig For His Thunderbolts.
Believe
Thinking
Evil
In Order To Know Virtue, We Must First Acquaint Ourselves With Vice.
Order
Vices
Kinky
It Is Certain That Stealing Nourishes Courage, Strength, Skill, Tact, In A Word, All The Virtues Useful To A Republican System And Consequently To Our Own. Lay Partiality Aside, And Answer Me: Is Theft, Whose Effect Is To Distribute Wealth More Evenly, To Be Branded As A Wrong In Our Day, Under Our Government Which Aims At Equality? Plainly, The Answer Is No.
Government
Skills
Answers
Happiness Is An Abstraction, It Is A Product Of The Imagination, It Is A Way Of Being Moved, Which Depends Entirely On Our Way Of Seeing And Feeling.
Imagination
Feelings
Way
It Has, Moreover, Been Proven That Horror, Nastiness, And The Frightful Are What Give Pleasure When One Fornicates. Beauty Is A Simple Thing; Ugliness Is The Exceptional Thing. And Fiery Imaginations, No Doubt, Always Prefer The Extraordinary Thing To The Simple Thing.
Beauty
Simple
Imagination
They Declaim Against The Passions Without Bothering To Think That It Is From Their Flame Philosophy Lights Its Torch.
Philosophy
Passion
Thinking
To Judge From The Notions Expounded By Theologians, One Must Conclude That God Created Most Men Simply With A View To Crowding Hell.
Atheist
Men
Views
If It Is The Dirty Element That Gives Pleasure To The Act Of Lust, Then The Dirtier It Is, The More Pleasurable It Is Bound To Be.
Dirty
Giving
Lust
Those Laws, Being Forged For Universal Application, Are In Perpetual Conflict With Personal Interest, Just As Personal Interest Is Always In Contradiction With The General Interest. Good For Society, Our Laws Are Very Bad For The Individuals Whereof It Is Composed; For, If They One Time Protect The Individual, They Hinder, Trouble, Fetter Him For Three Quarters Of His Life.
Law
Three
Conflict
All Universal Moral Principles Are Idle Fancies.
Principles
Fancy
Moral
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.
Character
Men
Sensitive Man
The Mechanism That Directs Government Cannot Be Virtuous, Because It Is Impossible To Thwart Every Crime, To Protect Oneself From Every Criminal Without Being Criminal Too; That Which Directs Corrupt Mankind Must Be Corrupt Itself; And It Will Never Be By Means Of Virtue, Virtue Being Inert And Passive, That You Will Maintain Control Over Vice, Which Is Ever Active: The Governor Must Be More Energetic Than The Governed.
Mean
Government
Vices
Any Punishment That Does Not Correct, That Can Merely Rouse Rebellion In Whoever Has To Endure It, Is A Piece Of Gratuitous Infamy Which Makes Those Who Impose It More Guilty In The Eyes Of Humanity, Good Sense And Reason, Nay A Hundred Times More Guilty Than The Victim On Whom The Punishment Is Inflicted.
Eye
Punishment
Humanity
Thread Of Their Days Without Pity, And In The Midst Of Life, Without Ever Concerning Themselves With This Fatal Moment, Living As Though They Were To Exist For Ever, They Disappear Into The Obscure Cloud Of Immortality, Uncertain Of The Fate Which Lies In Store For Them.
Lying
Fate
Cutting
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