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Marquis de Sade

2 June 1740-2 December 1814

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Abortion is an imaginary crime. 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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Alcohol is to conversation like fiber to the bowels; they both run more smoothly when lubricated.

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Crime is the soul of lust and pleasure would be dull if not accompanied by crime, as it is the idea of evil that excites us rather than the object of debauchery.

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Crime is to the passions what nervous fluid is to life: It sustains them, it supplies their strength.

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Cruelty is a properly human sentiment, in contrast to the so-called humane sentiments which 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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Cruelty is simply the energy in a man civilization has not yet altogether corrupted. It is a virtue, not a vice... 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.

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Cruelty is to be sharply distinguished from state violence, which expresses repression, control, tyranny, and strict rule-following... cruelty should be subversive action, expresses human freedom and creativity, and amounting to something uniquely individual, impossible to categorize, and indirectly creative.

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Death is merely part of a natural order which denies eternity to beings. It is no more than a change of form, an imperceptible passage from one existence into another.

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Desire is mirrored only dully by an inferior reality. regardless of the situation, it can always be said 'what we are doing here is only the image of what we would like to do.