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Those laws, being forged for universal application, are in perpetual conflict with personal interest, just as personal interest is always in contradiction with the general interest. Good for society, our laws are very bad for the individuals whereof it is composed; for, if they one time protect the individual, they hinder, trouble, fetter him for three quarters of his life.

— Marquis de Sade

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Philosophy

More quotes by Marquis de Sade

Theft is only punished because it violates the right of property; but this right is itself nothing in origin but theft.

Juliette (1797)

A person must have lost his mind to believe in God.

Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795)

Fear and ignorance, you will continue, are two mainstays of any and all religions.

Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795)

Benevolence is more a vice of pride than a true virtue of the soul.

Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795)

Modesty is an old-fashioned virtue, which, given your charms, you must certainly do without.

Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795)

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The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

H. P. Lovecraft The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped.

Robert Anton Wilson

Every morning
I shall concern myself anew about the boundary
Between the love-deed-Yes and the power-deed-No
And pressing forward honor reality.

Martin Buber Power and Love (1926)

In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended.

John C. Lilly The Human Biocomputer (1974)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Marquis de Sade (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.