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frenchpet -> (real) quotes of the Marquis de Sade (9/14/2005 12:51:49 PM)
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I just read in a sig line a factitious quote supposedly from the Marquis de Sade, that said something like"Your honor, I didn't have to practise sexual perversion, I'm very good at it", supposedly said during a trial. I knew it wasn't a real quote because the play on word (between the 2 meanings of "practise") doesn't work in french. Too bad, it's a nice sentence...
Sade was a very high ranked Noble who was sent to jail for torturing Rose Keller (a prostitute). He was of course very bored, in jail, as his fellow prisoners were non kinky, boring people, such as the Marquis de Mirabeau, a boring economist. Which is why he had time to write a few texts where he describes his kinks (Most of his works is boring philosophy) :
-Dialogue entre un prêtre et un moribond (Dialogue Between a Priest and a Dying Man), where he says he's atheist : THAT was kinky !!
-Les 120 Journées de Sodome (One Hundred and Twenty Days of Sodom)
-Les Infortunes de la vertu (an early version of Justine)
-Les Crimes de l'amour (Crimes of Passion)
trivia : he was in the Bastille a few days before it was stormed, then was transfered to Charenton.
So here's some real quotes (or so I hope !) from the Marquis de Sade. I chose those related to his extreme lifestyle, or just to Women (the name of the book is between brackets, if possible, followd by the -personal- translation between parenthesis). Note that these quotes don't mention his specific kinks that he ... practised for real, just general thoughts about the subject :
" Adressez-vous plutôt aux passions qu'aux vertus quand vous voudrez persuader une femme."
[ La Philosophie dans le boudoir, his main philosophical -boring- book ]
(When you want to convince a woman, appeal to her passions rather than to her virtues)
"C'est une chose très différente que d'aimer ou que de jouir; la preuve en est qu'on aime tous les jours sans jouir et qu'on jouit encore plus souvent sans aimer."
[Justine]
(To love and to enjoy are very different things; proof is that one loves everyday without enjoying and that one enjoys even more without loving)
Note : "jouir" means both "to enjoy" and "to have an orgasm" [:D]
"Il n'est nullement besoin d'être aimé pour bien jouir et ... l'amour nuit plutôt aux transports de la jouissance qu'il n'y sert."
[ Juliette ]
(It is absolutely not necessary to be loved to enjoy well and... love rather hinders the transports of joy than it serves them)
same note...
"Il est très doux de scandaliser: il existe là un petit triomphe pour l'orgueil qui n'est nullement à dédaigner."
[La philosophie dans le boudoir]
(It is very sweet to scandalize : there is here a little triumph for prise that should by no mean be overlooked)
"Il est un antre obscur où vont s'isoler les amours pour nous séduire avec plus d'énergie."
[Justine]
(There is a dark den where loves go and isolate to captivate us with more energy)
"Il n'est aucune sorte de sensation qui soit plus vive que celle de la douleur; ses impressions sont sûres, elles ne trompent point comme celles du plaisir."
(There is no kind of feeling as sharp as pain; its feelings are reliable, they do not deceive as the feelings of pleasure)
"Il n'est pas deux peuples sur la surface du globe qui soient vertueux de la même manière."
[Justine]
(There aren't two peoples on the surface of the globe that are virtuous in the same way)
" Il n'y a point de passion plus égoïste que celle de la luxure."
[ Juliette ]
(There is no passion as selfish as lust)
" Je ne sais ce que c'est que le coeur, ... je n'appelle ainsi que les faiblesses de l'esprit."
[ La Philosophie dans le boudoir ]
(I don't know what is heart... I only call like this the weaknesses of the mind)
"L'amour est-il un mal dont on puisse guérir?"
[Justine]
(Is love a sickness of which one can cure ?)
"La cruauté, bien loin d'être un vice, est le premier sentiment qu'imprime en nous la nature; l'enfant brise son hochet, mord le téton de sa nourrice, étrangle son oiseau, bien avant que d'avoir l'âge de raison."
[La philosophie dans le boudoir]
(Cruelty, far from being a vice, is the first feeling that nature engraves in us; the child breaks his rattle, bites his nanny's tit, strangles the bird, much before the age of reason)
"La frivolité n'est point mon vice."
[ Juliette ]
(Frivolousness is not my vice)
"La route de la vertu n'est pas toujours la plus sûre, et il y a des circonstances dans le monde où la complicité d'un crime est préférable à la délation."
[Justine]
(The road of virtue is not always the safest, and in som circumstances the complicity of a crime is preferable to denunciation)
"La tolérance est la vertu du faible."
[ La Nouvelle Justine (1795) ]
(Tolerance is the virtue of the weak)
"Le bonheur n'est que dans ce qui agite, et il n'y a que le crime qui agite: la vertu, qui n'est qu'un état d'inaction et de repos, ne peut jamais conduire au bonheur."
[ La Nouvelle Justine (1795) ]
(Happiness is only in restlessness, and only crime is restless: virtue, which is only a state of inaction and rest, cannot lead to happiness)
"Le système de l'amour du prochain est une chimère que nous devons au christianisme et non pas à la nature."
[Justine]
(The system of the love of the neighbor is a chimera due to christianism and not to nature)
"Ne te contiens donc point, nargue tes lois, tes conventions sociales et tes Dieux."
(Do not contain yourself, tount your laws, your social conventions and your Gods)
"Rien n'est affreux en libertinage, parce que tout ce que le libertinage inspire, l'est également par la nature."
[ La Philosophie dans le boudoir ]
(Nothing is ugly in libertinage, because all that the libertinage inspires, is also inspired by nature)
"Tous les hommes sont fous, et qui n'en veut point voir - Doit rester dans sa chambre et casser son miroir."
(All men are mad, and who does not want to see one - Must stay in his room and break his mirror)
"Tout est bon quand il est excessif."
[ La Nouvelle Justine (1795) ]
(Everything is good when it's in excess)
" Tout le bonheur des hommes est dans l'imagination."
(All the happiness of men is in the imagination)
"Une jolie fille ne doit s'occuper que de foutre et jamais d'engendrer."
(A beautiful girl should only keep herself busy fucking and never bearing children)
Several of Sade's books are available for free, legally, in pdf format, at http://gallica.bnf.fr/ (as are 70000 other books).
He wrote a lot about politics, with some thoughts such as :
"Ce n'est jamais dans l'anarchie que les tyrans naissent, vous ne les voyez s'élever qu'à l'ombre des lois ou s'autoriser d'elles."
[ Juliette ]
(It is never in anarchy that tyrans are born, don't you see them grow at the shadow of the laws or use them as an excuse.)
He insisted that his remains should be spread, saying " I flatter myself that my memory will be effaced from the mind of men."
I'm not very happy with some of my translations, but I hope you learnt something about this legendary figure from whom the word "sadism" derived, and that you enjoyed it.
...Actually there was an even more sadistic person in french history (much older) : Gilles de Rais, who was much more crual...
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