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There are one or two rules of thumb which are useful in distinguishing sadism from exciting adventure in the comics. Threat of torture is harmless, but when the torture it’s self is shown it becomes sadism. When a lovely heroine is show bound to the stake, comics followers are sure that the rescue will arrive just in the nick of time. The readers wish is to see save the girl, not to see her suffer. A bound or chained person does not suffer even embarrassment in the comics, and the reader, therefore is not being taught to enjoy suffering.

— William Moulton Marston

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More quotes by William Moulton Marston

The only hope for civilization is the greater freedom, development and equality of women in all fields of human activity.

Tolerant people are the happiest, so why not get rid of prejudices that hold you back?

Your Life What are your prejudices? (1939)

Not even the church is so powerfully equipped to serve the public psychologically as is the motion picture company.

A motion picture must be true to life. If a picture portrays a false emotion it train people seeing it to react abnormally.

Appetite emotion must first, last and always be adapted to love.

The Emotions of Normal People (1928)

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