2
" My soul is callous, it is impassive... I put any sentiment whatever at defiance to attain it, with the exception of pleasure. I am mistress of that soul's movements and affections, of its desires, of its impulsions; with me, everything is under the unchallenged control of mind; and there's worse yet... for my mind is appalling. But I am not complaining, I cherish my vices, I abhor virtue; I am the sworn enemy of all religions, of all gods and godlings, I fear neither the ills of life nor what follows death; and when you're like me, you're happy. "
― Marquis de Sade , Juliette
10
" My dear, the universe runs itself, and the eternal laws inherent in Nature suffice, without any first cause or prime mover, to produce all there is and all that we know; the perpetual movement of matter explains everything: why need we supply a motor to that which is ever in motion?
The universe is an assemblage of unlike entities which act and react mutually and successively with and against each other; I discern no start, no finish, no fixed boundaries, this universe I see only as an incessant passing from one state into another, and within it only particular beings which forever change shape and form, but I acknowledge no universal cause behind and distinct from the universe and which gives it existence and which procures the modifications in the particular beings composing it. "
― Marquis de Sade , Juliette
12
" Nothing is essentially born, nothing essentially perishes, all is but the action and reaction of matter; all is like the ocean billows which ever rise and fall, like the tides of the sea, ebbing and flowing endlessly, without there being either the loss or the gain of a drop in the volume of the waters; all this is a perpetual flux which ever was and shall always be, and whereof we become, though we know it not, the principal agents by reason of our vices and our virtues. All this is an infinite variation; a thousand thousand different portions of matter which appear under every form are shattered, are reconstituted to appear again under others, again to be undone and to rearise. "
― Marquis de Sade , Juliette
14
" If they who are appointed to instruct and rule over men had wisdom and virtue themselves, realities, and not fantasies, would enable them to govern better; but scoundrels, quacksalvers, ambitious ruffians, or low sneaks, the lawgivers have ever found it easier to lull nations to sleep with bedtime tales than to teach truths to the public, than to develop intelligence in the population, than to encourage men to virtue by making it worthwhile for sound and palpable reasons, than, in short, to govern them in a logical manner. "
― Marquis de Sade , Juliette
