Aline and Valcour, or, the Philosophical Novel, Vol. III Quotes

“Time to yield, Valcour. Life henceforth offers you none but thorns. Unite your soul with those of your friends. Once more: read on, I say, and go to your grave.”
― Marquis de Sade, Aline and Valcour, or, the Philosophical Novel, Vol. III

“How is it possible to act so harshly after having been so unhappy? I'd always believed misfortune nudges open the soul, that remembering the pains we ourselves endured, our heart grows more sensitive to the suffering of others. I was wrong. Unhappiness hardens people, dulling them to their own pain; one grows accustomed to be unmoved by that of others, to remain impassive in the face of attack and therefore indifferent to blows that strike others.”
― Marquis de Sade, Aline and Valcour, or, the Philosophical Novel, Vol. III

“One of the keenest pleasures of this monstrous prince, which arouses him most vigorously, is to have every offender he can snare impaled before his eyes without distinction as to age or sex. Standing at an open palace window, 15 or 20 feet from the place of execution, surrounded by women, he enjoys in fine comfort the cruel pleasure of watching victims suffer.”
― Marquis de Sade, Aline and Valcour, or, the Philosophical Novel, Vol. III

“Clémentine viewed good deeds as trickery; sensitivity, a weakness from which we must protect ourselves; modesty, an error that always disadvantages the charms of one who's pretty; sincerity, an idiocy that makes a fool; humility, an absurdity; temperance, a deprivation for the best years of one's life; and religion, laughable hypocrisy.”
― Marquis de Sade, Aline and Valcour, or, the Philosophical Novel, Vol. III

“You cannot imagine, my friend, the desire I have to possess Aline; I find such stinging detail in the dear young thing. It must be delicious to take her in tears! Sophie was all very fine, but Aline! We'll never go as far with the latter as with the former; there's some sort of consideration we owe to virtue—and to blood. But let's not swear on anything because, for minds like ours, the paths we take are, as you know, unbounded.”
― Marquis de Sade, Aline and Valcour, or, the Philosophical Novel, Vol. III

“Fortunate moments of quiet happiness—where are they? Nowhere to be seen.”
― Marquis de Sade, Aline and Valcour, or, the Philosophical Novel, Vol. III

“One can be, in a word, virtuous in thought, character, and temperament—without being obliged to adopt a thousand absurd systems that have nothing to do with virtue.”
― Marquis de Sade, Aline and Valcour, or, the Philosophical Novel, Vol. III

“If really wise, a man should unquestionably prefer a libertine for a spouse than a woman who's only served modesty; and he should stop thinking that such modesty, treasured only by ugly women, is worth a whit to anybody else.”
― Marquis de Sade, Aline and Valcour, or, the Philosophical Novel, Vol. III

“He ravished the honor of the woman he had just shorn of life.”
― Marquis de Sade, Aline and Valcour, or, the Philosophical Novel, Vol. III

“If you'll permit me, the distance that separates debauchery from impiety is far greater than that between debauchery and religious superstition. One does what one likes when safe from reproach under the mantle of religion; but the woman who loves virtue for its own sake and serves it because it inflames her heart, who's brazen and bares her soul—she'll be seen rushing headlong to commit errors she can't hide.”
― Marquis de Sade, Aline and Valcour, or, the Philosophical Novel, Vol. III

“   "I'm infinitely less afraid," she told me one night, "of serving this monster's pleasures than being his main course at dinner."
   "Not me! I'd prefer a thousand times to be eaten than satisfy his disgraceful lust."
   "Don't you think that's taking virtue too far?"
   "No, it's only to cherish the man I love."
   "When things calm down a little, you'll explain to me such délicatesse. I still don't understand it."   ”
― Marquis de Sade, Aline and Valcour, or, the Philosophical Novel, Vol. III

“Duval's fresh impudence made me realize that if I'd changed masters after being nearly taken into a Turk's harem, now I was in a Frenchman's home on a footing not much different. Into whomsoever's hands a woman of my age might fall, the risks were pretty much the same.”
― Marquis de Sade, Aline and Valcour, or, the Philosophical Novel, Vol. III

“The Senneval woman will grouse and grieve; virtuous Déterville will frown and curl his bottom lip; and the President shall weep, demand her daughter be returned, call me her tyrant and so forth—all those pretty epithets that these women lavish upon us when our fantasies and tastes don't harmonize with the stupid monotony of their own.”
― Marquis de Sade, Aline and Valcour, or, the Philosophical Novel, Vol. III