My passions, concentrated on a single point, resemble the rays of a sun assembled by a magnifying glass: they immediately set fire to whatever object they find in their way.
Marquis De SadeRead
Either kill me or take me as I am, because I'll be damned if I ever change.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a strong insistence on authenticity and self-acceptance.
Marquis De Sadeβs quote reflects a deep commitment to being true to oneself, emphasizing that one should either accept a person as they truly are or not at all. It illustrates the idea that personal integrity and authenticity are paramount, and it challenges the notion of change imposed by others, suggesting that change must come from within, if at all.
In practice
In a motivational speech about embracing oneβs true self.
My passions, concentrated on a single point, resemble the rays of a sun assembled by a magnifying glass: they immediately set fire to whatever object they find in their way.
So long as the laws remain such as they are today, employ some discretion: loud opinion forces us to do so; but in privacy and silence let us compensate ourselves for that cruel chastity we are obliged to display in public.
Happiness is an abstraction, it is a product of the imagination, it is a way of being moved, which depends entirely on our way of seeing and feeling.
Are your convictions so fragile that mine cannot stand in opposition to them? Is your God so illusory that the presence of my Devil reveals his insufficiency?
The mechanism that directs government cannot be virtuous, because it is impossible to thwart every crime, to protect oneself from every criminal without being criminal too; that which directs corrupt mankind must be corrupt itself; and it will never be by means of virtue, virtue being inert and passive, that you will maintain control over vice, which is ever active: the governor must be more energetic than the governed.
Prejudice is the sole author of infamies: how many acts are so qualified by an opinion forged out of naught but prejudice!
If I wasn't Bob Dylan, I'd probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself.
Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.
We are reading the story of our lives As though we were in it As though we had written it.
I like a view but I like to sit with my back turned to it.
I ought to spend the best hours of the day in communion with God. It is my noblest and most fruitful employment, and is not to be thrust into any corner.
There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.
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