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
For mortal men there is but one hell, and that is the folly and wickedness and spite of his fellows; but once his life is over, there's an end to it: his annihilation is final and entire, of him nothing survives.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Human suffering is rooted in the actions of others, and death brings an end to individual existence.
Marquis De Sade's quote explores the idea that the greatest source of torment for human beings comes from the negative behaviors of those around them. He suggests that while individuals suffer because of the folly, wickedness, and spite of others, the finality of death means that this suffering also has an endpoint, leading to complete annihilation, where nothing of the individual remains after life.
Themes
SufferingDeathAn AnnihilationHuman ConductPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
During a philosophical discussion on the nature of suffering in a classroom.
More from Marquis De Sade
All quotes →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.
Marquis De SadeRead
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.
Marquis De SadeRead
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?
Marquis De SadeRead
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.
Marquis De SadeRead
Prejudice is the sole author of infamies: how many acts are so qualified by an opinion forged out of naught but prejudice!
Marquis De SadeRead
Similar quotes
The old grooves must be erased in your brain, without forming new ones. You must realize yourself as the immovable, behind and beyond the movable, the silent witness of all that happens.
Sri Nisargadatta MaharajRead
If you look within the United States, religion seems to make you a better person. Yet atheist societies do very well - better, in many ways, than devout ones.
Paul BloomRead
How could so many intelligent people be so grievously wrong for such an extended period of time? How could they ignore so much overwhelming evidence that contradicted their most basic theories? These questions, too, deserve their own discipline: the sociology of error.
Steven JohnsonRead
Utilitarianism is a civilization of production and of use, a civilization of "things" and not of "persons," a civilization in which persons are used in the same way as things are used. In the context of a civilization of use, woman can become an object for man, children a hindrance to parents, the family an institution obstructing the freedom of its members.
Pope John Paul IiRead
Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.
SenecaRead
Hate crimes are different from other crimes. They strike at the heart of one's identity - they strike at our sense of self, our sense of belonging. The end result is loss - loss of trust, loss of dignity, and in the worst case, loss of life.
James ComeyRead