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
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Focusing your passions can create powerful and transformative impacts.
In this quote, Marquis De Sade illustrates the idea that when one channels their passions and energies towards a specific goal or purpose, the intensity of that focus can lead to significant outcomes, much like how concentrated sunlight can ignite a fire. This serves as a metaphor for the importance of dedication and single-mindedness in achieving success.
Themes
PassionFocusMotivationEnergySuccessIntensity
In practice
Example use cases
A speaker at a motivational seminar could use this quote to inspire attendees to pursue their dreams with unwavering focus.
More from Marquis De Sade
All quotes βHappiness 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
Imperious, choleric, irascible, extreme in everything, with a dissolute imagination the like of which has never been seen, atheistic to the point of fanaticism, there you have me in a nutshell, and kill me again or take me as I am, for I shall not change.
Marquis De SadeRead
Similar quotes
It's okay to work for someone else; not everyone is cut out to own a business, and even so, working for someone else is a chance to learn how to both be an employee and an employer.
Marcus LemonisRead
An idea is something that won't work unless you do.
Thomas A. EdisonRead
Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.
Robert A. HeinleinRead
Instead of being afraid of the challenge and failure, be afraid of avoiding the challenge and doing nothing
Soichiro HondaRead
Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.
Golda MeirRead
Positive self-expectancy is the first, most outwardly identifiable quality of a top-achieving, winning human being. Positive self-expectancy is pure and simple optimism: real enthusiasm for everything you do... [while] expecting the most favorable result from your own actions. There never was a winner who didn't expect to win in advance. Winners understand that life is a self-fulfilling prophecy. And they know that you usually get what you expect in the long run.
Denis WaitleyRead