74 Quotes by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

Wanting to pay love with friendship is not to be afraid of ingratitude, but to be afraid of looking ungrateful.

L'amour est un sentiment indépendant, que la prudence peut faire éviter, mais qu'elle ne saurait vaincre ; et qui, une fois né, ne meurt que de sa belle mort, ou du défaut absolu d'espoir.

He'd call me false and faithless and I've always had a weakness for those two words; next to cruel, they're the nicest words for a woman to hear, and not so hard to earn.

Will you, then, never grow weary of being unjust?

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.

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.

N’avez-vous pas dû en conclure que, née pour venger mon sexe & maîtriser le vôtre, j’avais su me créer des moyens inconnus jusqu’à moi?

Love, hatred, you have only to choose: it is all there with you under the same roof. You can enjoy life, caressing with one hand and killing with the other.

Oh, keep your warnings and your fears for those giddy women who call themselves women of feeling, whose heated imaginations persuade them that nature has placed their senses in their heads; who, having never thought about it, invariably confuse love with a lover; who, with their stupid delusions, imagine that the man with whom they have found pleasure is pleasure's only source; and, like all the superstitious, accord that faith and respect to the priest which is due to only the divinity.