The Life and Ideas of the Marquis de Sade Quotes

“working by himself, mostly in complete isolation, de Sade catalogued all the sexual deviations which the next century was to re-list with the aid of numerous clinics and correspondents and elaborate team research; and he rehearsed the rejected dreams which half a century of psychoanalytic research is bringing back into consciousness and which are still so horrifying that continuous attempts are being made to produce the results of psychoanalysis without tapping the wishes and fantasies of infancy and childhood.”
― Geoffrey Gorer, The Life and Ideas of the Marquis de Sade

“He has no graces of style at all; he abounds in clichés of every sort, and one would have to search hard to find an original metaphor or simile; he writes at such speed that his syntax is frequently inextricably convoluted; and his books have a tendency to proliferate like cancers, burgeoning monstrously, with constant additions but, as far as the evidence of the surviving manuscripts is a guide, with no cuts at all. He writes really badly most of the time, somewhat in the same way as Dickens or Balzac write really badly most of the time; and on one level at least he can be compared to these two writers, and put on a par with the greatest prose writers of any country. In his most typical novels he has created a world of his own as personal and as hallucinating as that of any other great writer: de Sade leaves his unmistakeable imprint on the page as clearly as Dickens or Dostoievsky, Balzac or Proust. He is a great creator; and in literature, this is so rare a quality that, when it occurs, the presence or absence of the lesser graces hardly matter at all.”
― Geoffrey Gorer, The Life and Ideas of the Marquis de Sade

“Sadism, as described by its analyst I would define as the pleasure felt from the observed modifications on the external world produced by the will of the observer.”
― Geoffrey Gorer, The Life and Ideas of the Marquis de Sade

“Despite its encouragement of illegitimate children, the legislation of Nazi Germany was extremely puritanical with continual emphasis on sexual and racial purity; and the charge of sexual misdemeanours was regularly raised against people whom it was desired to discredit. No country is more prudish to-day, both in its legislation and public behaviour, than the U.S.S.R. under Stalin; all the liberal concessions which were made in the first years of the revolution have been withdrawn; homosexuality, abortion, common law concubinage and frequent divorce are all penalized; the regulation of sexual behaviour is more savage than it ever was under the Czars. It is improbable that the late George Orwell consciously remembered this passage (I know he read it when it first came out) when he invented the Junior Anti-Sex League for all the girls in Nineteen Eighty-Four;”
― Geoffrey Gorer, The Life and Ideas of the Marquis de Sade

“Do not tax me with being a dangerous innovator; do not say that there is a risk of lightening, as perhaps these writings may do, the remorse in the malefactor’s heart, or that there is a greater evil in increasing, by the mildness of my system, the inclination these same malefactors have for their crimes; I here protest formally that I have no such perverse views; I am exposing those ideas which have been identified with me since I reached the age of reason, and against whose diffusion the infamous despotism of tyrants was directed for so many ages; so much the worse for those whom these great ideas would corrupt; so much the worse for those who can only catch hold of the evil in philosophical opinions and who are susceptible to corruption from everything; Who knows if they wouldn’t be tainted by reading Seneca or Charron! It is not those whom I speak to; I only address myself to people capable of understanding me, and such can read me without danger.”
― Geoffrey Gorer, The Life and Ideas of the Marquis de Sade

“In La Volupté and L’Art de Jouir he gives his prescription for happiness. It is very delicate, very sentimental, and very erotic, illustrated with excerpts from imaginary classical idylls. He dislikes obscenity and obscene books (which he considers dangerous as destroying illusions) and prefers what I can only qualify as elegant poetic pornography. For him, pleasure is inexistent without sentiment. Within the limits he sets himself he shows considerable interest and knowledge in sexual technique and variations, even going beyond what is generally considered permitted with the explanation that “Tout est femme dans ce qu’on aime.”
― Geoffrey Gorer, The Life and Ideas of the Marquis de Sade

“But shall we not wear out our reader’s patience in describing new atrocities?” he asks. “Have we not already sufficiently soiled their imaginations with tales of filth? Should we hazard new ones?—Hazard, hazard, replies the philosopher. People don’t realise how important these pictures are to the soul’s development; our great ignorance of this science is only due to the stupid modesty of those wont to write on such matters. Held in by absurd fears they only tell us of puerilities that every fool knows and do not dare to lay hands fearlessly on the human heart and portray its gigantic divagations. We will obey since philosophy commands and will fear no more to paint vice naked.”
― Geoffrey Gorer, The Life and Ideas of the Marquis de Sade

“The introduction sets the scene and gives elaborate physical and mental portraits of the actors. This portrait gallery is an astounding performance, as a piece of writing hardly ever equalled. They are monstrous figures, well over life size, painted with extreme naturalism, yet crystallised to an individuality the naturalist school never attained. De Sade is absolutely merciless; we are not spared a single wrinkle, a single sore, unpleasant smell or habit, not a single meanness or treachery; no detail of cowardice or filth is hidden. But the canvas is not monotonous; religion and beauty are there too, childishness and romanticism; the whole gamut of human possibilities are exhibited in their extremest development.”
― Geoffrey Gorer, The Life and Ideas of the Marquis de Sade