Top 23 Quotes & Sayings by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

I see you are already as timid as a slave: you might as well be in love.

I shall possess this woman; I shall steal her from the husband who profanes her: I will even dare ravish her from the God whom she adores. What delight, to be in turns the object and the victor of her remorse! Far be it from me to destroy the prejudices which sway her mind! They will add to my happiness and my triumph. Let her believe in virtue, and sacrifice it to me; let the idea of falling terrify her, without preventing her fall; and may she, shaken by a thousand terrors, forget them, vanquish them only in my arms.

You may conquer her love of God: you will never overcome her fear of the devil.

I can see that you're in love, but only in a very narrow sense. It's the love of someone that finds charms and qualities in a woman that she doesn't actually have, who puts her in a class apart with every one else in second place, and who stays attached to her even while he's abusing her.

Humanity is not perfect in any fashion; no more in the case of evil than in that of good. The criminal has his virtues, just as the honest man has his weaknesses.

One must not permit oneself excesses, except with persons whom one wishes soon to leave.

Revenge is a dish that is best served cold.

...it is not for the illusion of a moment to govern the choice of a lifetime.

When one woman strikes at the heart of another, she seldom misses, and the wound is invariably fatal.

Don't you remember that love, like medicine, is only the art of encouraging nature?

Marquise de Merteuil: I've distilled every thing to one single principle: win or die.

Cast between the extremes of happiness and misfortune, uncertainty is a cruel torment.

How characteristic of your perverse heart that longs only for what happens to be out of reach.

I am astonished at the pleasure one experiences in doing good; and I should be tempted to believe that what we call virtuous people have not so much merit as they lead us to suppose.

La vengeance est un plat qui se mange froid

I assure you that the world is not so amusing as we imagined.

I willingly allow that money does not guarantee happiness; but it must also be allowed that it makes happiness a great deal easier to achieve.

It was there, in particular, that I confirmed the truth that love, which we cry up as the source of our pleasures, is nothing more than an excuse for them.

Truth to tell, the longer I live, the more I'm tempted to think that the only moderately worthwhile people in the world are you and I.

A man enjoys the happiness he feels, a woman the happiness she gives.

It has become necessary for me to have this woman, so as to save myself from the ridicule of being in love with her: for to what lengths will a man not be driven by thwarted desire?

All publicity is good publicity.

Either you have a rival or you don't. If you have one, you must please in order to be preferred to him, and if you don't you must still please-in order to avoid having one.