Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue Quotes

“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?”
― Marquis de Sade, Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue

“I am a libertine, but I am not a criminal nor a murderer, and since I am compelled to set my apology alongside my vindication, I shall therefore say that it might well be possible that those who condemn me as unjustly as I have been might themselves be unable to offset the infamies by good works as clearly established as those I can contrast to my errors. And yet you who today tyrannize me so cruelly, you do not believe it either: your vengeance has beguiled your mind, you have proceeded blindly to tyrannize, but your heart knows mine, it judges it more fairly, and it knows full well it is innocent.”
― Marqués de Sade, Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue

“...Madame, I have become a whore through good-will and libertine through virtue.”
― The Marquis de Sade, Justine, or the Misfortunes of Virtue

“I wished to stifle the unhappy passion which burned in my soul; but is love an illness to be cured? All I endeavored to oppose to it merely fanned its flames.”
― Marquis de Sade, Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue

“What, then, are religions if not the restraint wherewith the tyranny of the mightier sought to enslave the weaker? Motivated by that design, he dared say to him whom he claimed the right to dominate, that a God had forged the irons with which cruelty manacled him; and the latter, bestialized by his misery, indistinctly believed everything the former wished. Can religions, born of these rogueries, merit respect?”
― Marquis de Sade, Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue

“Non, Thérèse, non, il n’est point de Dieu, la nature se suffit à elle-même ; elle n’a nullement besoin d’un auteur, cet auteur supposé n’est qu’une décomposition de ses propres forces”
― Donatien-Alphonse-François de Sade, Justine ou les malheurs de la vertu

“If, though full of respect for social conventions and never overstepping the bounds they draw round us, if, nonetheless, it should come to pass that the wicked tread upon flowers, will it not be decided that it is preferable to abandon oneself to the tide rather than to resist it? Will it not be felt that Virtue, however beautiful, becomes the worst of all attitudes when it is found too feeble to contend with Vice, and that, in an entirely corrupted age, the safest course is to follow along after the others?”
― Marquis de Sade, Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue

“This monster was outfitted with faculties so gigantic that even the broadest thoroughfares would still have appeared too narrow for him.”
― Marquis de Sade, Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue

“There is no rational commensuration between what affects us and what affects others; the first we sense physically, the other only touches us morally.”
― Marquis de Sade, Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue

“Thus, that happiness the two sexes cannot find with the other they will find, one in blind obedience, the other in the most energetic expression of his domination.”
― Marquis de Sade, Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue

“[...]virtue is not some kind of mode whose value is
incontestable, it is simply
a scheme of conduct, a way of getting along, which varies
according to accidents of geography and climate and which, consequently, has no
reality, the which alone exhibits its futility.
Only what is constant is really good; what changes perpetually cannot
claim that
characterization: that is why they have declared that immutability belongs to the
ranks of the Eternal's perfections; but virtue is completely without this quality: there
is not, upon the entire globe, two races which are virtuous in the same m
anner;
hence, virtue is not in any sense real, nor in any wise intrinsically good and in no sort
deserves our reverence.”
― Marquis de Sade, Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue

“The laws vainly try to talk virtue to the mass, but it's just talk. The people who make the laws are really too biased towards evil and never carry out their fine talk -- they merely make a stab at it for the sake of appearances, that's all.”
― Marquis de Sade, Justine

“In a society full of vice, virtue will never be useful.”
― Marquis de Sade, Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue

“من السُخف أن يُعاقب المرء على أهواءه كي يتم ردعه عن الخوض بها مجدداً ،
وَ كبح غرائزه وإن كانت شنيعة فَـ الطبيعة أهدتها إياه منذُ كان في رحم أمه ،
فَـ كيف يُطلب منه أن يكون غير نفسه ؟! أليست الطبيعة وضعت الأهواء لسعادة الإنسان ؟!،
إذاً لماذا يتنازل الإنسان عن سعادتة بِ حجّة حفظ المجتمع بينما المجتمع لا يهتم به !”
― Marquis de Sade, Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue

“But to declare his wishes only in some unknown corner of Asia, to choose the most double-dealing and the most superstitious of peoples as followers, and the vilest, most ridiculous, and most roguish working man as representative, to muddle up the message so much that it is impossible to comprehend, to teach it only to a tiny number of individuals while leaving everyone else in the dark, and to punish them for remaining there... Oh, no, Therese, no, no, such atrocities cannot be our guide. I would rather die a thousand times than believe in them. When atheism wants martyrs, let it choose them and my blood is ready.”
― The Marquis de Sade, Justine, or the Misfortunes of Virtue

“‎"...θα πρέπει να αντιληφθείς, αγαπητή Τερέζα, ότι τα αντικείμενα δεν έχουν, κατά την άποψη μας, άλλη αξία από εκείνη που τους δίνει η φαντασία μας”
― Marques de Sade, Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue

“These same men who are always in power realize the advantage of vice and unscrupulousness and wish everybody else to be virtuous so that they alone might have the greater benefit of this advantage, and get the upper hand.”
― Marquis de Sade, Justine, Or, The Misfortunes of Virtue

“Why do you complain of your fate, when you could so easily change it?”
― Marquis de Sade, Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue

“This is what men have done to me. This is what I have learnt from the dangers of associating with them. Is it surprising that, embittered by misfortune and revolted by outrages and injustices, I should in my heart aspire only to avoid all contact with them in the future?”
― Marquis de Sade, Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue

“How I love to hear the rich and titled, the magistrates and the priests, how I love to watch them preach virtue to us! It is very hard to keep oneself from stealing when one has three times more than one to live! A great strain to never think of murder when one is surrounded by sycophants and slaves for whom your will is law! Truly difficult to be temperate and sober when one is at all times surrounded by the most succulent dishes! So difficult for them to be sincere when they have no reason to lie!”
― Marquis de Sade, Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue

“Quando me tiverem provado a sublimidade de nossa espécie, quando me tiverem demonstrado que ela é tão importante para a natureza que necessariamente suas leis se irritam com sua destruição, então eu poderei crer que essa destruição é um crime; mas quando o estudo mais ponderado da natureza me tiver provado que tudo o que vegeta sobre o globo, a mais imperfeita das suas obras, tem um preço igual aos seus olhos, jamais suporei que a mudança de um de seus seres em mil outros possa ofender suas leis; eu me direi: todos os homens, todas as plantas, todos os animais que crescem, vegetam, se destroem pelos mesmos meios, não recebendo jamais uma morte real, mas uma simples variação no que as modifica, tudo, digo, tudo se perseguindo, destruindo-se, procriando indiferentemente, aparece um instante sob uma forma e no instante seguinte sob uma outra, podem ao capricho do ser que quer ou que pode move-los, mudar milhares e milhares de vezes num dia sem que uma única lei da natureza possa ser afetada por instantes sequer.”
― Marquis de Sade, Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue

“La vida sólo es una serie ininterrumpida de penas y placeres”
― Marquis de Sade, Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue

“Nuestro placer principal consiste en violar la ley y el orden; anhelamos el caos total”
― Marquis de Sade, Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue

“There is no keener sensation than that of pain: its impressions are certain, they do not deceive like those of the pleasure perpetually acted out by women and almost never felt by them. And how much self-esteem, youth, strength and vigour is required to produce in a woman that doubtful and hardly satisfying impression of pleasure. Whereas pain, by contrast, requires nothing: the more flaws a man has, the older and less likeable he is, the better he'll succeed.”
― Marquis de Sade, Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue

“Faibles portions d'une matière vile et brute, à notre mort, c'est-à-dire à la réunion des éléments qui nous composent aux éléments de la masse générale, anéantis pour jamais, quelle qu'ait été notre conduite, nous passerons un instant dans le creuset de la nature, pour en rejaillir sous d'autres formes, et cela sans qu'il y ait plus de prérogatives pour celui qui follement encensa la vertu, que pour celui qui se livra aux plus honteux excès, parce qu'il n'est rien dont la nature s'offense, et que tous les hommes également sortis de son sein, n'ayant agi pendant leur vie que d'après ses impulsions, y retrouveront tous, après leur existence, et la même fin et le même sort.”
― Marquis de Sade, Justine ou Les Malheurs de la vertu

“Religion? 'tis as naught to us, our contempt for it grows the better acquainted with it we become; allies... kin... friends... judges? there's none of that in this place, dear girl, you will discover nothing but cruelty, egoism, and the most sustained debauchery and impiety.”
― Marquis de Sade, Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue

“Por otro lado, un hombre no cataloga como criminales a todos los asesinos, sino solamente a los que llevan a cabo sus acciones en calidad de empresa particular.”
― Marqués de Sade, Justine

“Es muy difícil asegurarse contra el robo cuando se tiene tres veces más de lo que hace falta para vivir”
― Marqués de Sade, Los infortunios de la virtud

“La verdadera justicia no se aplica porque es a los más grandes delincuentes a los que más aprecian quienes tienen el poder judicial.”
― Marqués de Sade, Justine

“O que importa para a natureza sempre criadora aquela massa de carne que hoje tem a forma de uma mulher se reproduza amanhã sob a forma de mil insetos diferentes? Ousarás dizer que a construção de um indivíduo como nós custa mais à natureza que a de um verme e que, por conseguinte, ela deva dar-lhe mais
atenção?”
― Marquis de Sade, Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue